The growing threat of vast ravines swallowing streets and homes Phys.org
Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds The Guardian
Climate/Environment
Great Lakes have entered era of extreme temps, study finds Bridge Michigan
A monster seaweed bloom is taking over the Atlantic Science Daily
Wildfire smoke is back for a national encore Balanced Weather
Western Canada tourism operators’ burned by another summer of wildfires The Canadian Press
Pandemics
RFK Jr. says he doesn’t know how many Americans died from COVID as he’s grilled at hearing USA Today. He doesn’t know and those grilling him might know but don’t care.
India
India’s strong economic growth fails to impress equity investors Reuters
ASML Pitches for India Business as Modi Eyes Local Chip Making Bloomberg
The Sino-Indian Rapprochement Is More Than Just a Response to Trump The Wire
China?
US and Taiwanese defence officials held secret talks in Alaska FT
Former official of China’s ministry sentenced to death with two-year reprieve for leaking state secrets: MSS Global Times
China’s AI-fueled stock rally bucks economic ills Asia Times
US-China AI Competition: Southeast Asia Will Need to Strike a Balance Fulcrum
Africa
Military juntas struggling for support as Islamist rebellion gains ground in West Africa Globe and Mail
Isn’t it interesting how whenever an African country resists western imperialism, all in the sudden they fall victim to attacks by “Islamist” terrorists pic.twitter.com/Xhz3Rqr34E
— Revolutionary Blackout🥋 (@SocialistMMA) September 4, 2025
Syraqistan
Israeli Attacks and Starvation Kill 87 More Palestinians in Gaza Over 24 Hours Antiwar
Sensitive Israeli targets come under Yemeni fire during fresh pro-Palestinian operations Press TV
Israeli groups shared drone footage of their controlled detonation of the University College of Science and Technology in Khan Yunis today. pic.twitter.com/GEk2ekTojl
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) September 4, 2025
Israeli intelligence data: Militants account for only 1 in 4 Gaza detainees +972 Magazine
Gaza-bound flotilla condemns Israeli minister’s plan to seize boats, designate activists ‘terrorists’ Anadolu Agency
***
The Voice of Hind Rajab received a 22-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival.
The longest ovation in the festival’s history.
Hind, only 6, was executed by Israel with 355 bullets.
The world sees Israel for what it truly is.
🇵🇸 🇵🇸 🇵🇸pic.twitter.com/oBb6YwCDxn
— sarah (@sahouraxo) September 3, 2025
Christ. I can’t bear this quote from Hind.
I can’t fucking bear it. pic.twitter.com/UM9byqbJUT
— Barry Malone (@malonebarry) September 3, 2025
***
Israel’s Defense Minister vows to kill Yemeni children. https://t.co/mlfHyNfXFj
— jasper nathaniel (@infinite_jaz) September 4, 2025
***
European Disunion
JPMorgan Bringing Digital Retail Bank to Germany in 2026 PYMNTS
MAGA’s health wrecking ball is heading for Europe Euractiv
LONG READ: Europeans face recession, financial crises, as they struggle to boost defence spending Intellinews
Is Another Europe Possible? Counterpunch. Wolfgang Streeck.
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia’s central bank releases its closely-watched annual medium-term outlook report Intellinews
Trump Presses Europe to End Russian Oil Imports Reuters
US to cut some security funds for European countries bordering Russia FT
SITREP 9/5/25: Rumblings of New ‘Major’ Russian Offensive as Elite Units Regroup Simplicius
Russian Strike Kills 2 Deminers From Danish Refugee Council in Ukraine Moscow Times
Denmark involved in production of Ukraine’s new missiles – media RT
John Helmer: Russia Loses Patience Over Ignored Security Concerns Glenn Diesen (Video). For example…
(1):
Polish Prime Minister Tusk stated that the EU has decided to give Ukraine security guarantees in exchange for American sanctions against Russia.
‘As for the security guarantees that European countries should provide, we are talking about very specific things. Very specific data… pic.twitter.com/NHl7HVDiCG
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) September 4, 2025
(2):
NATO chief Rutte gets it: “Why are we interested in what russia thinks about troops in Ukraine? It’s a sovereign country. It’s not for [russia] to decide” pic.twitter.com/vlUgRknGPd
— Alex Raufoglu (@ralakbar) September 4, 2025
WWII Revisionism
This is extraordinarily embarrassing: pic.twitter.com/Kl3Uttf90I
Kaja Kallas, the EU Foreign Policy head, doesn’t even seem to be aware that Russia and China were among the winners of WW2.
Immensely ironically, she dismisses it as “something new” and propaganda for people who…
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) September 4, 2025
An apparently useful reminder:
So if the United States wants to talk about its role in WWII, it should be honest and it should sound something like this:
Yes, the Soviets destroyed 75–80% of the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front (with some American and British help through Lend-Lease, which amounted to roughly…
— Rina Lu🇷🇺 (@rinalu_) September 4, 2025
South of the Border
Rubio Says US Is Open to Basing Troops in Ecuador as Ties Warm Bloomberg
Rubio Says U.S. Will Work With Other Nations to ‘Blow Up’ Crime Groups New York Times
Yale Law School never beating the “they don’t teach law at Yale” allegations pic.twitter.com/efgkgH4uUd
— Anna Bower (@AnnaBower) September 4, 2025
This whole thread is worth reading:
They’re trying to boil the Venezuelan frog.
Each escalation will be a small step from the previous one and any retaliation will be treated as a pretext.
The goal would be to ramp up to a situation where Venezuela can be bombed with impunity.
— The Anti-Genocide Project (@justinpodur) September 3, 2025
Trump 2.0
DOJ Opens Criminal Investigation Into Fed’s Cook, Issues Subpoenas WSJ
Search warrant reveals what feds seized at John Bolton’s home The Hill
Police State Watch
Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz detention site to stay open for now, court rules Palm Beach Post
US visa and green card agency creating police force to arrest immigrants and lawyers suspected of fraud The Independent
Antitrust
One of the last, best hopes for saving the open web and a free press is dead Blood in the Machine
Big Tech Always Escapes Justice What We Lost
Accelerationists
Tech CEOs Take Turns Praising Trump at White House Dinner WSJ
Be Best, bots: Melania Trump and tech CEOs discuss saturating US schools with AI The Guardian
The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It? Wired. “When her son died in utero, a venture capitalist went to extremes to punish her surrogate.”
Imperial Collapse Watch
On Utopias, Imperial Decline, and Monterey, California Un-Diplomatic
Sky-high budget gap: FAA launches air traffic overhaul, lacks cash to finish it The Register
Boeing
Boeing hires replacement workers as defense unit strike enters second month CNBC
Mr. Market
August jobs report to show further ‘softness growing’ in the US labor market as Fed rate cuts near Yahoo! Finance
US Hiring Intentions Pull Back While Job-Cut Announcements Rise Bloomberg. “US-based companies announced in August plans to add 1,494 jobs, the fewest for the month in data going back to 2009.”
Healthcare?
The Surgeon Who Took On UnitedHealth Now Pays the Price HEALTH CARE un-covered
Immigration
Trump Administration Ends TPS for 250,000 Venezuelan Migrants Amid Escalating US–Venezuela Tensions Venezuelanalysis
Groves of Academe
The Culture War Comes to Class The Orchard
Book Nook
Do Indian authors need to be social media influencers to sell books? Vogue India
Our Famously Free Press
Stop the Presses The Baffler
Brave New World
Neuralink’s Bid to Trademark ‘Telepathy’ and ‘Telekinesis’ Faces Legal Issues Wired
Do People Really Want Humanoid Robots in Their Homes? IEEE Spectrum
Guillotine Watch
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev says investing for a living could replace labor in a post-AI world Fortune
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
164 comments
Comments are closed.
” Alex Raufoglu
@ralakbar
NATO chief Rutte gets it: “Why are we interested in what russia thinks about troops in Ukraine? It’s a sovereign country. It’s not for [russia] to decide”’
Some guy did a reply to this tweet which pretty well sums it up-
‘Michael Morrissey
@mindbanx
Replying to @ralakbar
The whole point of the conflict in Ukraine is that Europe has believed it does not have to consider what Russia thinks.
If Russia or China put troops in Canada or Mexico, I’m pretty f*cking certain that “what the US / NATO thinks” would be an “issue”.
It’s hard to fathom that this idiot actually said this. No wonder there is war.’
And does anybody care what Rutte thinks? No European country would send any troops into the Ukraine without a Russian agreement or the Russians would simply annihilate them. And Rutte knows it.
Rev Kev: I am in Sicily visiting the ancestors.
A brief comment. The Italian government has already indicated through Tajani, Meloni, and Li’l Matteo Salvini that no Italian troops will go to Ucraine. Doing so would cause this government to fall.
Rutte. I have such fond memories: “Not a euro for Italy.” Che pirla.
Meanwhile, big demos in Sicilia yesterday to support the Flottiglia Sumud. I chanced on the one in Palermo and joined in. A long line of people in Via Vittorio Emanuele. Much clanging of pots. Banners from some of my favorite groups of commies.
I had just emerged from a performance of traditional Sicilian marionettes.
That’s Italy. First the wonderful marionettes, then the Revolution.
Wish I was in Sicily too. Got interested in the place after reading about Scipio Africanus making his invasion preps there for Africa but what really sealed the deal was the beautiful views of Sicily to be seen in the Inspector Montalbano series showing the towns and countryside. Have a good time there and raise a glass of Sicilian wine for me.
And from what I saw in my time in Italy, the people there were too sophisticated to get themselves in a lunatic scheme to send their troops into an active combat zone on behalf of people like Zelelnsy, Rutte and von der Lying.
Spent a fortnight in Sicily before the turn of the century, and visited about a dozen ancient Greek temples including one with the original roof still intact.
Much more impressive than the Acropolis in Athens and you can walk all over them, the best grouping is in Agrigento and they are floodlit at night, amazing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valle_dei_Templi
My family is from Sant’Elia, should be about 20 miles or so down the coast east from Palermo. If you meet any Passantinos or Tarantinos or Balestreris please say buon giorno for me!
Heads in sand. Mindset: US’ new, improved Dept of War will bail them out! As trend since 1914.
Russian Federation has concerns that the EUros have not moved an inch off the Minsk scam plan.
RF knows that EUros want Kievan SSR territory as a US dagger to RF throat.
Of course, Rutte does not care about RF survival.
That is EUros dream to gut RF resources.
US thinking not involved either, as US wants the resources!
Rutte’s invoking sovereignty is lazy and with high potential to follow a slippery slope in several senses. The laziness indicates disrespect for the public at large. The practicalities of troops in Ukraine are dutifully ignored.
Quote:
I care about Rutte’s ability to think and pronounce Russia with lowercase ‘r’. That’s some achievement.
I heard on the Kyle Kulinski news podcast that the news that the Trump 2025 Budget Bill will socially-murder 50K extra USians via 17M people losing health insurance (mostly via losing Medicaid, with a few Ms losing ACA private insurance).
I feel this was the missing recent-last-20-years historical context. The Lancet 2020 study projects the MedicareForAll act to save 68.5K lives annually.
Thus all recent presidents have been socially-murdering genocider demociders. The newly set Obama status quo set via the ACA makes Obama a 68.5k/year American genocider. Biden arguably slightly reduced this perhaps by 3K? (my uninformed guesstimate) via temporary more generous ACA discounts may have marginally kept a few more percent insured. BTW Obama & Biden campaign-promised Public Option health insurance & then promptly flip-flopped & killed Public Option immediately in office. BushJr’s genocide was worse than Obama for the cohort who purchased unregulated pre-ACA portion of the insurance market that was junk insurance & did not realize it until a serious medical event like a cancer diagnosis, + the cohort whose “prexisting condition” prevented ANY insurer from selling them a policy. Trump47 is the worst genocider of these 4 Presidents/Criminals-Against-Humanity for adding 50K to the 68.5K to murdering 115.5K/yr Americans with his budget bill slashing Medicaid & reducing ACA subsidies.
I doubt any MSM reported this historicaly context, not even PBS Newshour, much less Faux News/msDNC, C”N”N. Even Kulinski even did not give this historical context on his indy Youtube podcast.
‘Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
This is extraordinarily embarrassing: xcancel.com/peacemaket71/status/19…
Kaja Kallas, the EU Foreign Policy head, doesn’t even seem to be aware that Russia and China were among the winners of WW2.
Immensely ironically, she dismisses it as “something new” and propaganda for people who “don’t read or remember history that much” 🤦♂️
Not sure how she explains how Russia and China got their permanent seat at the UN Security Council 🤷♂️’
Pretty sure that if you asked Kaja Kallas, that she would modestly admit that it was Estonia that beat the Wehrmacht in WW2.
Gawd. Russophobia is a helluva drug that will fry your brain.
I’m honestly flabbergasted by how ignorant Kallas is. How does she manage to get by let alone become EU foreign minister? I think if I were that ignorant I’d be homeless.
She’s also stated the following:
“Like I always say, the Chinese have the technologies but are not that good in social sciences.
The Russians, vice-versa, are very good in social sciences but not that good in technology.”
https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/keynote-speech-high-representative-foreign-affairs-and-security-policy-and-vice-president-european_en
It boggles the mind, or at least it boggles mine.
She managed that feat because she is true representative of EU elites and their thinking. It’s article of faith among these people that WW2 was won by West and if there were any partial successes on the Soviet side, they were entirely due to Western generosity like Lend & Lease. And most of them have no idea there was WW2 in China too.
So yes, they are sincerely flabbergasted how YOU could think anyone but them owns the WW2 victory.
She managed that feat because she is true representative of EU elites and their thinking
They’re lost in their narrative till the end. You can’t tell a fool that they’re a fool because they’re a fool. Forex, this in the NY Times today: –
Europe Is Playing a Long Game on Ukraine, and With Trump:
Leaders on the continent are trying to show the U.S. president that they are serious about laying the groundwork to end the war — and that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is not.
Not that the piece is anything but the nonsense you’d expect, but here’s a link — https://archive.ph/UB5t3
What’s really interesting about Kallas in this context is that she is a Soviet herself – she was born and grew up in the USSR, the daughter of a locally prominent party official, so may be said to belong to the Soviet elite as much to the European one. I wonder how well her background helped her transition from one elite to the other, and to wobble with the party line, as it were. Seems like a universally useful skill, whether she wobbles internally as well or not.
Afro: I suspect we think, oohhh, they are worldy Scandinavians and Scandinavoids. Evidently the shores of the Baltic Sea are awash in provincialism. Consider Finland’s accession to Nato. Now consider Kallas and what must be the quality of the Finnish government to have pulled such a self-harming stunt.
I have questions below about the Danes and their frothing at the mouth.
I am reminded of the provincialism, unhappiness, and self-absorption I witnessed in the North Shore suburbs of Chicago. Are these countries suburbs?
To be less charitable, Kallas is White Lady Failing Up. I have seen that phenomenon…
“she would modestly admit that it was Estonia that beat the Wehrmacht in WW2.”
Oh no, don’t you try to Putin-puppet her, mister. She would say that Estonia protected and saved Europe from the baaaad, baaad, baad Putin and Russia.
Pretty sure that if you asked Kaja Kallas, she would say that Nazism is not defeted yet. And she would not be wrong.
There is little natural light behind that dull face and eyes…
More like the lights are on but nobody is home. :)
The lights are on, but you’re not home.
Your mind is not your own.
…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcATvu5f9vE
An Accrington brick is more capable of intelligent thought than Kallas, and I think it is a affront to her human dignity to allow her to speak or even be seen in passing in public. I used to think she was an endless source of amusement but now I am deeply ashamed of myself because her situation is really sad and it would be tragic if she was not utterly detached from reality and living in her own single celled universe.
I suppose the real problem is that an incapacity to recognise anything with even the most tangential relationship to reality is a fundamental quality which this generation of Western political grifters requires to thrive, so even if someone were to take pity on her and give her a brain transplant from a gnat to boost her IQ, she would simply lose her job, soon to be homeless and may actually begin to understand the nature of precarity in the modern model of European liberal democracy if her immune system fails to reject the transplant.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Are there any Danish commenters here?
Can someone explain what all the public crotchscratching is about? Shouldn’t the Danes offer to solve the North Stream alleged mystery (in their backyard)?
Has someone eaten too many butter cookies? Was the herring harvest inadequate this year?
That one about the Danish deminers was nuts. From the article –
” “The Russians deliberately targeted workers from the Danish Refugee Council’s humanitarian demining mission… two people are known to have been killed,” Chaus said on social media.”
Um, there’s still a war going on and Denmark sends in people to remove Russian weaponry in the middle of the war zone. WTF did they think was going to happen?!!? Sounds to me like the Danish authorities set up some poor saps to be killed for propaganda purposes.
They were preparing the field for drone launching against Russia and got caught in the open. Reports that Colombians and Ukrainians fought for two days before they figured out no Russians were involved in another spot. The front is starting to disintegrate in spots and control is being lost by those at the top.
Unofficial reports have emerged that Trump has once more phoned Putin-
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/lVr2GxeJlCg
Does Putin have like a 1-900 number for Trump to call? For a Nobel prize, please call…
What´s going on with Moon of Alabama?
After almost a day still not reachable.
Is it just me or non-Germans too?
It’s unreachable for me, too. I’m in the US.
Timing out since last night.
MoA must have told one truth too many!
MoA must have told one truth too many!
Same thing here in Oz. It just times out.
It’s even more concerning that the Wayback machine at Archive.org shows the site failing to have been archived (as I understand the color coding), on September 1, and on August 16th, 29th and 31st . And not archived due to a “redirect” on August 19th. So the first date I can retrieve is back on August 14th. I think Bernhard never did bother with site certificates, so if you tried to get his site on a public machine with a browser that preferred https you could have difficulties until you reverted to just plain http, but this is not a certificate problem. According to my memory, the site was up through Sept. 1.
Was working yesterday and I never had a problem with https
Yes, I accessed it yesterday too. Trying right now though and it times out before loading.
Looks like MoA is up on its protection money to Cloudflare, which says that the connections to the origin server are timing out. In other words, MoA’s server isn’t responding at the operating system level. I’d suspect a hardware failure of some kind.
thanks
and is that a genuine technical problem or is it more likely fake in order to block
Cloudflare had a problem with the 1.1.1.1 DNS, so that may explain recent accessibility for some.
Cloudflare is rapidly moving up my hate list with its constantly intruding itself between me and the websites I frequently visit. I can’t think of any other hosting service that so often needs to see “proof that you’re human” or whatever the stupid message is. And in some cases they redirect you to a days old version of a web site without saying so.
See you there. Way back when chickens still had teeth, we created and ran one of the largest persistent Flash-based online worlds. After we got trashed a couple of times by malicious types, we installed Cloudflare. Bad idea. We got firehosed even worse. And it took >2 minutes for user approval. Nobody stuck around to wait that long.
Our back end engineer, who’d done a coupla small gigs like the Toronto and Sydney stock exchanges, pointed out some dreadful flaws in CF’s protocols. Astoundingly, we managed to reach the founder, then wished we hadn’t. He was as confrontational, hostile and defensive as they come. After all the acrimony dissipated, we’d lost tens of thousands of players. We were COPPA compliant (Disney got whanged this week for 8 figures worth of violations) so creep diversion was critical. We ended up writing our own software. It worked fine until Adobe nerfed Flash.
Suddenly unreachable from Canada too.
I think their host (typepad?) is having problems again. This has happened before for this long and I’d noticed before that another unrelated blog I follow went down at the same time due to being hosted on Typepad as well. Typepad’s own sites are currently down too although they posted tweets some hours ago noting they had found the source of the issue and service would be restored soon. Also that they’re shutting down. I imagine MoA will be migrating to another host soon.
The Cloud flare thing is unrelated to the host, a lot of blogs have had to start using Cloudflare’s caching and anti-ddos services because of AI scraping bots causing undue load on the hosts so the captchas come up when a provider is under load and trying to shed some traffic to prevent issues (like the provider going down due to not enough capacity for all the traffic).
I don’t even get a time out. Nothing seems to be actually moving, like the request for his site even leaves… (canada)
Just fix the data
Lutnick predicts ‘better’ job number accuracy after Trump fired BLS chief (CNBC)
Ignorance is the new hotness. That’s one way to mask uncontrolled flight into terrain, blackout the windows!
In one sense, Lutnick was right. Trump will ring the Bureau of Labor Statistics and then the numbers will get better. Nobody will believe them but Trump will use those numbers to show what a great job he is doing. It’s bipartisan. Remember how last year the Biden regime was gaslighting people about how great the Biden economy was going? For both parties, so long as the economy is going great for the billionaires then nothing else matters.
We’ve also got:
Mounting Deportations Meet Slow Hiring in a ‘Curious Kind of Balance’ (NY Times via archive.ph)
Potentially masking weakness.
And you’ve got to be kidding me, 2021 was not “after the Pandemic”. Eventually no one will even mention that it even happened.
(bold mine)
How can you flock to Florida for their non-existent Pandemic “restrictions” and it simultaneously be “after”?
*bangs head on wall*
So who’s getting fired today?
Unemployment ticked up to 4.3%
August job growth was very poor at only 22,000
June got revised to a net job loss of 13,000 (that’s -13,000)
Lol, who gets fired this time?
The Yahoo finance report listed durable goods and business services industries as having the largest losses. However, and YMMV given the source, Youtube reports suggest substantial layoffs of municipal employees on the West Coast, software and digital services outside Silicon Valley (this probably falls under the “business services” rubric used in the Yahoo report), and in the hospitality industry, especially in Las Vegas. In a very roundabout way, from the finance side, I hear that land acquisition and plans for construction and renovations in the hospitality industry across much of the country have fallen off a cliff, but I cannot as yet find official statistics that would confirm or contradict this individual person’s observations. If true, I think this would lead to substantial “non-hiring” as compared to the recent past, leading eventually to a loss of construction jobs. You have probably read the reports of crisis in the American tourism industry.
I am waiting eagerly for the AI bubble to burst, and for the MIC to finally come to the realization that they absolutely will not be getting rare earths from China. Maybe then, the avalanche will begin.
NYT: U.S. Labor Markets Stalled This Summer, With August Data Adding to Slowdown
Employers added only 22,000 jobs in August, and the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4.3 percent. Revised data also showed that employment fell by 13,000 jobs in June, the first net loss since December 2020.
Well if it is “more accurate” then this “August jobs report to show further ‘softness growing’ in the US labor market as Fed rate cuts near” means Stagflation Nation.
It’s like the old Soviet joke:
Question: Comrade, the production graph shows terrible results! What can we do?
Answer: Firmly grasp the graph with both hands and rotate it 90 degrees to the left. The results will immediately improve
re: John Helmer
Not completely through yet but an excellent take by Helmer so far.
(corresponds with Berletic in a general sense I said to myself: “There is no hope” 🤔)
And I really enjoy his sharpness.
Speaking of Berletic: I really like the combination of Doctorow and Berletic. First, you get some hope from Doctorow who believes and argues quite well that there is a plan and way towards peace. Then comes Berletic and de-hopes you with his equally well argued “continuity of agenda”. Helps you train keeping two thoughts at the same time and both could be true since USA could also consist of several constituencies.
I don’t even bother with people that think this administration has any good intent what so ever.
First time reported, as far as I know; happened in 2019:
How a Top Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission Into North Korea Fell Apart (NY Times via archive.ph)
‘The aborted SEAL mission prompted a series of military reviews during Mr. Trump’s first term. They found that the killing of civilians was justified under the rules of engagement, and that the mission was undone by a collision of unfortunate occurrences that could not have been foreseen or avoided. The findings were classified.’
The Pentagon investigated itself and found that they had done nothing wrong. Can you imagine what would have happened if Russia or China did this and killed a coupla American fisherman because they panicked? Tough luck for the families of those poor suckers aboard that North Korean boat but if anybody had asked Trump about them, he would have claimed that they were all terrorists on their way to deliver drugs to America.
I call shenanigans on this one…. IMO, SEAL Team 6 would not be sent—this type of mission would be under the purview of the CIA.
NYT journalists fed “official” clandestine info to further someone’s agenda against someone else? Un-possible!
YMMV.
YMMV The dreaded Tetraengrammatron! Is it all really a Narrative now?
Facts are so 20th century.
One must be very cautious when writing the name of The Tetragrammaton. I remember from the modest Israel/Judah room at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago that in one exhibit, it was written (transliterating) y”h. And don’t think about saying it out loud. Thus came “Jehovah.”
I find the subject of “secret names” fascinating. The resort to sympathetic magic to ‘handle’ the phenomenal world is so, human.
the NYT is such a willing participant in the game of halls and mirrors (see “yellowcake” among others) that if the NYT’s DC reporters told me that the earth’s gravitational pull = 9.8 meters per second per second, I’d have to go out to the backyard and run some experiments to confirm. lol.
why was this published now? cui bono?
I have a good idea.
Please tell.
> Is Another Europe Possible? Counterpunch. Wolfgang Streeck.
This is good. The part about European nuclear weaponry is quite funny in a grim way. Made me chuckle, anyway.
The part about the Baltics was especially interesting and worth excerpting:
He’s been workin’ on railroading
All the live long day
He’s been workin’ on railroading
Just to pass the time away
Can’t you see the all caps X posting?
Rise up so early in the morn
Can’t you hear the shoutin’
“Donald, blow your horn?”
Donald, won’t you blow
Donald, won’t you blow
Donald, won’t you blow out jobs, you know?
Donald, won’t you blow
Donald, won’t you blow
Donald, won’t you blow out jobs?
Hey, Stephen Miller is in cahoots with Donald
Someone’s in cahoots, I know
Someone’s in cahoots with Donald
Strumming on the imbroglio
And singing, fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o
Fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o-o-o-o
Fee, fie, fiddle-e-i-o
Strumming on the imbroglio
Looks like Taiwanese defence officials got themselves a case of cold feet.
re: Is Another Europe Possible?
Nope.
Since Streeck refers to the Thucydides Trap: How bad was the political situation really in 400 B.C.?
Of course I am aware that man did think different in earlier eras. It is known that Greek troops would sacrifice themselves without raising their arms if augury said so. So a certain faith in fate and submission to it was part of the consciousness. But being in battle and governing a state are two different things.
However Allison himself when coining the term did not suggest inevitability either.
Allison is a hack who’s built his career on being a gopher present in the X-room, the Kennedy Brothers crisis conference room during the Cuba crisis in 1963.
That is it, literally.
US support for Kuomintang…..
George Marshall tried to retire in late 1945. Truman asked him for “one more mission…” Sent him to hang with Chiang and try to sort out what was going on.
At the time Soviets were in Manchuria, repatriating Japanese troops who were not militarily defeated. US forces were in other areas of China where Japanese troops were cantoned, same mission repatriate the soldiers.
Marshall found Chiang surrounded by less than honorable, liberal factions, almost none worth US lives! Observed supporting them would drag US through the mud.
Later, McCarthy went after Marshall.
Had US someone like Marshall, or no Joe McCarthy, US would not have been dragged through the mud in Indochina…. for 20 senseless years.
Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45, by Barbara Tuchman is a hellova read, and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize
Stilwell loathed Chiang and derisively called him ‘Peanut’ or worse, and Vinegar Joe was an old China hand, having first visited around 1910.
If you want to study Marshalls activities with Chiang and Zhou find The China Mission by Daniel Kurtz- Phelar.
China’s WW2 experience is a complicated mess, with not only the Civil War between various factions–eventually between KMT and CPC, but getting there was complicated–but also a civil war within KMT in which the losers of the power struggle defected to the Japanese and kept calling themselves the real ROC, complete with the same flags, independence struggles supported by Japanese (they had much support among the Mongols in Inner Mongolia, ie the “Chinese” Mongolia, in particular. In many ways, Stilwell dissed Chiang unfairly–he had too many ideas, fancied himself as “understanding China” better than he did, and was too busy selling himself as the “only sane man” when he was as deluded as every other foreigner (and many Chinese, too). It’s not to say that anybody on the Chinese sides, at least among the leadership, was a saint–quite the contrary, I imagine that they were all devils of some kind, to varying degrees of evil. The mess that was East Asia during World War 2 makes Eastern Europe at the same time seem straightforward.
Speaking of the which, during the great victory parade a couple of days ago, Xi Jinping and invited heads of state went to greet a small group of Chinese veterans of WWII (all nonagenarians and centenarians). They had not all been PLA soldiers: one of them was a veteran of the Kuomintang. I found this intriguing, as the Kuomintang had been the big disparaged adversary (ideologically, politically, and militarily) during the civil war, and afterwards because of the Taiwan question.
KMT and CPC have mostly made up (2005 visit by KMT leaders to Mainland was huge) and, fwiw, PRC does recognize the legitimacy of the past KMT govt of China–just that they are a “historical” govt of China. PRC’s May Day and National Day (Oct 1) celebrations feature giant portraits of Sun Yat Sen and KMT flags all over Tiananmen Square.
Correction: apparently, I projected the images from certain events (probably from the 2005 KMT leaders’ visit) to more routine commemorations. Apparently, display of KMT flags on the Mainland is much more restricted than I thought and are only allowed in certain “historical” contexts and not annual commemorations as I thought.
So only PRC flags typically flank Sun Yat Sen portraits, which, come to think of it, makes for a strange juxtaposition.
Re: Marshall and McCarthy–
I’m only two minutes into what promises to be a very alarming speech yesterday by Bannon to some “National Conservatives” group. Marshall and McCarthy came up in those first two minutes with Bannon calling Marshall a traitor. He also denied “China” any role in defeating Japan in WWII, saying “Chine” only fought Chang’s troops.
Further descent into madness.
Re Hugh Bonneville speaking out against genocide on ITV–I can take or leave Downton Abbey but go him. Other stars like Brad Pitt are endorsing the documentary that got the standing ovation at Venice.
Meanwhile the Beverly Hills school system is forcing all schools to fly the Israeli flag for a month long celebration of the Zionist entity.
Lord Grantham versus Beverly Hills–who will win?
I believe that the Beverly Hills school superintendent shot down the whole idea of schools flying Israeli flags because they realized that that could make those schools and their students targets by some random nutjob and this was just confirmed by the Board-
https://beverlyhillscourier.com/2025/09/04/bhusd-reverses-course-on-israeli-flag-display/
Guess that they will have to go back to flying American flags at those schools instead.
Thanks for the correction.
Not a correction but just an update as I accidentally stumbled across this story the other day. It’s not really making the main stream media this story.
So updated version–Beverly Hills is afraid of being attacked for flying the flag of a country committing genocide. Hugh Bonneville is not afraid of being arrested by Starmer for opposing genocide. Good for him.
…they’re merely flying an all white Israeli flag
The Irish actor Liam Cunningham is on the Sumud flotilla to Gaza. In a Kneecap baseball cap, to boot!
He was supposed to sail on the first one, when Greta was detained, but there was a shortage of room on board.
Liam Abú!
Apparently Greta was seen wearing the Bohemians FC third kit (sponsored by Fontaines DC).
Didn’t he play Davos Seaworth in Game of Thrones? Fitting, in an interesting way. Godspeed to him and his brave compatriots.
– ‘Israeli Attacks and Starvation Kill 87 More Palestinians in Gaza Over 24 Hours’ – Antiwar
That’s strange. There was nothing at all about this on the NBC News last night. In fact I don’t believe Gaza or Israel were even mentioned during last night’s broadcast. However, the train derailment in Portugal was all over the newscast, perhaps because – as was noted several times – an American was listed as among the dead!
Some deaths are more newsworthy than others.
By the rivers of blood in Babylon
Where he sat down
And there we wept
When we remembered Zion
‘Cause the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us everything wrong
How can we sing King Bibi’s song
In a strange land?
‘Cause the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us to get gone
How can we sing King Bibi’s song
In a strange land?
Sing it out loud
Sing a song of freedom, brother
Sing a song of freedom, sister
So, let the words of our mouth
And the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in thy slight
Oh, Bibi
So, let the words of our mouth
And the meditation of our heart
Be acceptable in thy slight
Oh, Bibi
We got to sing it together
Everyone
La la la la la
By the rivers of blood in Babylon
Where he sat down
And there we wept
When we remembered Zion
‘Cause the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us to get gone
How can we sing King Bibi’s song
In a strange land?
‘Cause the wicked carried us away in captivity
Required from us to get gone
How can we sing King Bib’s song
In a strange land?
Rivers of Babylon, performed by the Melodians
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXf1j8Hz2bU&list=RDBXf1j8Hz2bU
re Wuk’s lyrics: “And there we wept…‘Cause the wicked carried us away in captivity”
+1.
Was on house chores with the company of my jukebox when Marvin’s songs came up. His lyrics also help, “Mother, mother/ There’s too many of you crying /Brother, brother, brother /There’s far too many of you dying
You know we’ve got to find a way / To bring some lovin’ here today – yeah”
In today’s links we are offered Barry Malone’s spine numbing post, therefore, for NC readers who may not have read this piece (2024) it’s a recap of Hind’s end.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/02/16/a-cry-in-the-darkness/
“Before the ambulance was dispatched, the Red Crescent Society told the Gaza Health Ministry and the IDF about Hind’s call…After they’d coordinated a plan for her rescue, the RCS dispatched an ambulance crewed by two paramedics: Ahmed al-Madhoon and Youssef Zeino…It would be 12 days before the Israelis withdrew from Tel al-Hawa; 12 days before anyone reached Hind, whose body had been left by the Israelis to decompose in the black Kia.”
Just for those who might not know, the Melodians’ song is itself a song parody of Psalm 137. That psalm begins with the heartache of an exile displaced by war:
Psalm 137:1-4 (NIV)
But after such a lovely, heart-tugging beginning, the Psalm ends shockingly:
Psalm 137:8-9 (NIV)
I’m not sure the Melodians thought of it as a parody. Wasn’t that the psalm sung by slaves after Nat Turner’s rebellion in the the US and picked up by plantation workers in the Caribbean? Or it might be vice-versa when the Caribbean slave revolts took place.
Whatever. The Harder They Come is a great album by any standards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7qsW8qboE&list=PLTZBRO2GYAOgN-O1hfyf7RooI5AGHq88X
https://katherinemartinko.substack.com/p/skechers-creepy-new-shoe-undermines
“Skechers’ Creepy New Shoe Undermines Child Autonomy
It’s a helicopter parent’s dream come true.”
Hooray more normalization of spyware, now get kids used to it before they know any better.
It seems to me to be more plausible that the people on the Venezuelan speedboat were migrants and not drug runners. If you’re running drugs, you’d use the space on such a small boat for that. Just thinking out loud here. What is for certain, we are led by psychopaths.
True, and, since the attack was held on the high seas against peaceful civilians, the act would legally amount to piracy. Did the American naval flotilla hoist the Jolly Roger before attacking?
Aarrrrr!!
Perhaps. Or they could have been local smugglers trying to break US sanctions. There are many things the people in the boat COULD have been but without prisoners we will never know. That is what happens when you base policy on a Tom Clancy novel.
It is kinda hard to interview burning corpses.
I was playing off an anonymous gov dot dark brief as such.
Of course the video is all We have, except an understanding that power corrupts Power.
Russians never properly occupied this region, and didn’t even had troops to do so, let alon mine it. The two deminers were either demining Ukrainian mines, or doing something else, or maybe were not deminers at all. Ukrainians are still operating training facilites in Chernigov region, in spite of regular visits from mr. Iskander.
Why the heck Ukrainians (I’d call all people from NATO countries in Ukraine de facto Ukrainian military personnel) be removing mines in an area where they are expecting Russian attack any moment!? Do these propagandists even listen to themselves? Do they even know that there’s a war on?
Doesn’t the removal of mines and other obstacles (such as barbed wire) constitute a usual preliminary activity to launching an attack?
From that perspective, the Ukrainians could have been planning to throw some kind of offensive at the Russians in that sector, and were therefore clearing up a path on their side. This would explain the, hem, muscular reaction of the Russians.
Nepal bans Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and 23 other social media platforms (Times of India)
The move of banning the social media platforms comes after the Supreme Court directive in a contempt of court case, which instructed the government to ensure all domestic and foreign-origin online platforms register with authorities before operating in the country and to monitor unwanted content….
….Meanwhile, a proposed social media bill — which could impose fines and jail terms for content deemed against “national interest” — is under debate in parliament, drawing further criticism from civil society groups.
Pretty much everything except TikTok and Telegram. Pretty wild step given how many people depend on those platforms.
Wait a moment. Tik Tok is Chinese owned while Telegram is run by that Russian dude. Could it be that Nepal decided that all that western social media was a major vector of colour revolutions and the like? Are they going to ban NGOs next? Regardless, I expect to soon see an improvement in Nepalese mental health overall.
Chinese influence was my first thought. On closer inspection, I’m not so sure. In the link above it lists some Chinese stuff that’s banned too.
I think it’s at least partly a good old fashioned domestic crackdown on freedom of speech.
Per Al Jazeera
The online restrictions follow a 2023 directive requiring social media platforms – which have millions of users in Nepal with accounts for entertainment, news and business – to register and establish a local presence.
Only five, including TikTok and Viber, have since formally registered, while two others are in the process….
….Nepal has restricted access to popular online platforms in the past.
Access was blocked to the Telegram messaging app in July, with the government citing a rise in online fraud and money laundering.
In August last year, Nepal lifted a nine-month ban on TikTok after the platform’s South Asia division agreed to comply with Nepali regulations.
I’m not sure what “complying with Nepali regulations” involves yet.
On the other hand, there’s now evidence of online grooming gangs working the online platforms against kids’ mental health. The online social media platforms don’t seem to be doing much to clean up their acts. / imo
“Get Ready For the Return of Serious Disease”
If there was one overarching message from the past five years of the Pandemic, it was this – ‘You’re on your own.’ You get sick, it’s your fault and not the governments. And if those old diseases like Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio, Chickenpox and Heptatis B all make a comeback then it will be up to you to get your own damn vaccinations. Tourism to America is already dropping off at a steep rate but if in the next few years foreign countries have to issue travel health advisories about visits to the US because of these diseases once more running rampant, then expect less tourists – and stressed hospitals.
I admit up front I did not watch all the congressional hearings yesterday about our health”care” system, cough, cough, but I did catch some high(low) lights. I salute anyone who could stomach more than a few minutes of it (like most of them are) of said garbage.
It think the main point we should now know, given how it went yesterday; we are not able or ready to have an intelligent adult conversation about our “cough cough” health”care” system. It should also show how utterly inept, unserious, and bought and paid for these worthless pukes really are.
Yet we live in a tribal wasteland fighting over who is the best smelling turd. Only in America.
The other message of the last five years, imo, is the story of the boy who cried wolf. The CDC and FDA reputations are reaping the whirlwind.
Covid is not and never was crying wolf.
No, the disease was not. The CDC and
FDA reponses often were and they knew it, as so much has come out now about the fact pfizer never tested their vax for preventing infection or tranmission but only for an immune response of some kind. Yet I was told repeatedly just the opposite from the CDC and FDA.
Sorry, you really are not on top of facts. It was in the test design for both Pfizer and Moderna that they were testing only for reduction of serious disease and death. The entire study design was public, so this was known even as the trials were underway.
I will not approve future comments by you that present false information. I don’t have the time to spend debunking them.
WOW …. what part about a ***novel virus*** do some people not understand after all the NC Covid Brain Trust put out there. A. no historical data. B. takes years if not decade+ just to put a floor under it. C. Neoliberalism infecting every public agency for decades is on record – Sierra Club et al. All underdone by market dynamics of investment/profit.
Union Carbide/Exon Exxon\Valdez/ et al ….
Decades of past is all now unfolding not just on you but, all the rest of the unwashed and now you mind is in a spin.
Re Big Tech Always Escapes–So the argument is that by paying to be the default browser on smartphones Google is disadvantaging Bing. But wait. Isn’t Bing owned by Microsoft which is just as bad, or worse, than Google? Or perhaps the villain here is Apple which agrees to accept that 18 million and include a default browser setting in IOS. At least in the decades past Microsoft antitrust case it was Microsoft versus Netscape–a little more David and Goliath.
So a lot of Big Tech does seem to escape scrutiny from the complainers. That doesn’t make Google a good company and in some areas it has definitely turned to evil whereas it attained its dominance by pretending that it wasn’t. But a lot of the arguing here does seem fuzzy. Perhaps they are all evil to some extent. What to do?
Meanwhile in terms of monopoly and consumer harm there are much worse industries out there. Food and chemical companies, real estate and FIRE in general come to mind.
That there are worse actors matters how? This case should not have been brought, then? You really don’t like this Google case do you?
https://imemc.org/article/un-assembly-moves-to-geneva-after-u-s-bars-palestinian-delegation
Might as well move the whole she-bang to Shanghai. Pariah states like Israel and the U.S. have already seceded from the family of civilized nations anyway.
“Search warrant reveals what feds seized at John Bolton’s home’
And here I was expecting sexy maid costumes and summer frocks. Sigh!
Nah. That was J Edgar’s collection, sexy maid costumes and summer frocks in large sizes ;-)
Or Genrikh Yagoda’s?
https://istmat-org.translate.goog/node/34204?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc
I thought that was Beria…oh, wait, he had a rather darker fetish…
‘Revolutionary Blackout🥋
@SocialistMMA
Isn’t it interesting how whenever an African country resists western imperialism, all in the sudden they fall victim to attacks by “Islamist” terrorists’
And now the US and the west have perfect deniable assets to help them – Ukrainians. They are popping up in different parts of Africa teaching their expertise to different terrorist groups-
https://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/278550683/ukrainian-terrorism-goes-global-where-now
Good thing that there will never be any blowback to US forces stationed in Africa from all this.
It’s not like Ukrainians have a reason to hate us, for “stabbing them in the back” or some such. (Not that we actually did, but we all but told them that we did.)
File under Climate/Environment,
Canada’s out-of-control wildfire crisis in six charts, Canada’s National Observer.
This accelerating new source of CO2 is adding to the already massive and growing emissions of CO2 caused by humans burning fossil oil, gas and coal. CO2 is a powerful and extremely long-lived greenhouse gas. It is piling up in an ever-thickening blanket in our atmosphere that will overheat generations to come. The extra heat being trapped by humanity’s CO2 now equals the explosions of 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs every day. And rising.
Two billion (and counting) tonnes of carbon released into the atmosphere since 2023. This is roughly the same as Japan, the world’s fifth largest emitter by nation.
But on the “bright” side, those fires throw off a lot of particulate that works something like the proposed shooting sulfur in the sky every two years. Of course, it causes lots of health problems, even death, but Progress must march on!
So have the billionaires figured out how to keep their mountain redoubts fire-safe and smoke-free? I’m sure Elon will propose drilling a hole somewhere to fix it.
I chuckled when I saw that Canada has “managed forests”. As far as I have seen, forest management practices in western Canada would have brought one into serious prison in the old country…
Thanks, I missed that delicious ort of double-speak. I suppose that in this case management means clearcutting while lawfaring away indigenous claims.
What with all the excitement recently in the Senate about pharmaceuticals, here is a link to a handy presentation about Phase I clinical trials from Astral Codex Ten.
Another take on today’s Jobs Report from Common Dreams:
‘Devastating’ New Jobs Report Shows Labor Market ‘Cracking’ Under Trump
This is a fascinating thought regarding the vaccine wars:
The idea that people could join forces and work together for the benefit of all has been an idea that’s been under attack since the start of the 20th century if not earlier. Obviously, non-elites could crush it elites in an instant if they were to work on it as a collective project, so this thought has to be banished from everyone’s minds to allow minority rule to continue.
It was a new idea to me that a side effect of this campaign might be the destruction of public health initiatives. We have seen the increasing readiness of the population to accept the idea that “vaccines are bad” and so on. The idea that this might be concomitant with the destruction of unions and the weaponization of racism and sexism is a disturbing one and another thing for us to all be on the lookout for.
Just when I was finally getting ready to relax!
An immiserated population, from all perspectives, is easier to control.
300+ Koreans nabbed at a Hyundai-Kia plant site.
Apparently they all/most arrived on a standard visa-free status for “business” purposes—-those visa terms do not allow things like: installation of plant equipment, rather are for meetings and sales pitches, etc..
Makes you wonder in addition to H1-B, how often this loophole is used by foreign corps.
and compare-contrast how AP commits “lies by omission” of pretty relevant facts—ie, these were not random Lake Woebegoners caught overstaying their visas.
https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10569602
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-raid-hyundai-georgia-electric-vehicles-191904f42f540898035feb2a6623d98e
Tics may boxes. Trump gets,
Juicy headlines for the anti-immigrant crowd.
A not so subtle middle finger to EVs.
Gets to flex some muscle in GA, a state where he yet has enemies from the ‘20 election.
Shows Korea who’s boss!
I like that last one. Diplomacy at work, and that, of course is sarcasm.
This has happened several times in the past in Georgia, with South Korean workers showing up at construction sites and factories.
It was a Hyundai/LG battery plant being built. The nearby EV plant not raided.
You wonder how much of this sort of thing goes on that has not been raided in the past. The TSMC chip operation near Phoenix has complained about US workers.
There is even–of course–a movie on the theme, Gung Ho from Ron Howard and Michael Keaton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)
If you’re interested in some Spygate history, here is a multi-part resource. Name repetition reminds me of those notorious Watergate people about 50 years ago.
NYT:
South Koreans Swept Up in Immigration Raid at Hyundai E.V. Plant in Georgia
KIA = Korean In Absentia?
Taibbi’s latest. public excerpt. With a utube link to the discussion.
What is the Bigger Threat to Free Speech, Europe, or Donald Trump’s America?
Thoughts after a challenging discussion with Freddie Sayers of Britain’s Unherd
https://www.racket.news/p/what-is-the-bigger-threat-to-free
AI to Reconstruct Lost 43 Minutes in Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons
https://consequence.net/2025/09/ai-orson-welles-the-magnificent-ambersons/
CEO: “step toward a scary, strange future of generative storytelling.”
…because of course everybody wants scary and strange.
ha!!! thanks
w.t.f.
btw next week Munich has its regular comprehensive Orson Welles retro starting and then running into November since – often over-looked fun fact – knowing Enno Patalas, legendary German film critic and once director of the venue – Welles gave Patalas his filmic inheritance and thus to the museum´s archive (its building features in “Mr. Arkadin” (1955)). Which is since putting out new versions and never before shown pieces.
On this basis e.g. many decades ago I had the honour and luck to witness the first and last projection of a reconstructed complete version of Welles´s famous Don Quixote movie which was put together from his archived reels and for legal reasons (Welles´s daughter Beatrice) not announced in the program.
So only the audience present for the official Welles movie “Chimes at Midnight” in the program would then have the opportunity to remain in their seats. Something I did despite 40C feaver (that´s the spirit 🤣). Being pretty sick and ailing in my seat, today I enjoy the memory of those images very vividly of Chimes and Don Quixote.
for the German movie program (with some decent texts) see right column on the homepage
https://www.muenchner-stadtmuseum.de/sammlungen/filmmuseum/informationen-programmheft
download “Programmheft”.
p.s. Beatrice according to Wiki:
“The daughter of American filmmaker Orson Welles and Italian actress Paola Mori, she is a former model, radio and TV personality, founder of a cosmetics line and designer of handbags and jewelry.”
+ pain in the ass as rights are concerned I had the impression back then. But perhaps I am really being unfair. was long time ago…
That’s interesting. Looks like Münchner Stadtmuseum has a great film program, e.g. showing Capra’s Lost Horizon on a big screen. They will screen the 1998 “reconstructed” version of Touch of Evil, which follows the outline in Welles’ detailed plea to Universal that he be allowed to finish his own film (the producer blew him off). Familiar with the studio cut, I found this version really quite different and more compelling. À voir.
I once saw a short excerpt of Don Quichotte, though today there are some unofficial reconstructions. It’s curious how much Quixote in Lost in La Mancha resembles Welles’ image of the titular hero.
Years ago, I had an acquaintance, an aspiring producer, who was trying to take on the rights’ issues and assemble something more complete. He was optimistic about the Quixote project, but eventually threw in the towel. I guess the problems were insurmountable. Last I heard, he had quit Hollywood and was working for a company that sells UAVs to the military.
Really hope that somebody in the Munich film archive can make a deal with the Welles estate, though it seems like the only way this happens nowadays is through crowdfunding to pay off everybody involved, e.g., the case of The Other Side of the Wind.
It recalls what Welles himself said:
👍
Truer words never spoken.
Your friend with UAVs? Seriously?!
(one could write an essayistic piece on the film producer from dreamland now selling drones…)
On the other hand, in order to make ends meet…
A producer colleague said that on her shows there are a lot of ex-convicts among the crews in general. Interesting take on life vs. film…
Duh …. ask Leonardo the pan holder …
sorry I didn´t get that one!
Again for a German mind? (although Leo is of German descent… Or am I really getting things mixed up?)
RE: The don’t teach law at Yale:
During my summer clerkship at a Big Law firm, one of the other summer associates came into my office one day and asked me what “injunctive relief” was. Admittedly, she was at Harvard Law, not Yale, but still.
My International Law professor at Yale Law School, Michael Reisman, is probably incensed with Vance’s point of view.
Not, I suppose, law in the sense you mean it, but law nonetheless. And of course Yale didn’t teach civil procedure in the way you’re describing.
Ha! and thus thank you.
Anthropic Agrees to Pay $1.5 Billion to Settle Lawsuit With Book Authors (NY Times via archive.ph)
Must be a bargain.
and
So basically nothing; it really is a bargain.
This passage seems emblematic of the current age:
Many or most of the things coming out of the human development process are things that don’t solve an important problem or that no one really wants. This flies in the face of the mythology that humans are good at inventing things to solve problems.
The general sequence of events seems to be that someone is gripped by an idea that they personally find interesting, or that involves a technology that is a personal interest (as in the case of the author of this piece), then they talk themselves and some rich investors into developing and building the thing (the rich investors then have their own set of prejudices that they bring to bear). Add in the additional requirement that the object or device has to be profitable, ideally very profitable, and you have a set of filters that few things can pass through. We can all make our own list of stupid stuff coming out of labs and factories most of which is pointless and never goes anywhere.
Occasionally, someone gets lucky and invents something that is both popular and profitable; these are called “unicorns” because of their rarity.
The fields of “marketing” and “design for user experience” have been invented to try to address these deficiencies, but in practice they are usually about determining what color lipstick to put on the pig rather than figuring out what to make in the first place. Ask anyone who works in these fields if you don’t believe me.
re: GPS/VdL affair and FINANCIAL TIMES´s Henry Foy
An excellent short comment today from Jens Berger on German NACHDENKSEITEN:
Yesterday, the Bulgarian government also admitted that there was never a GPS attack. This means that the entire story can now be completely classified as hoax. The person responsible for the media part of the hoax appears to be FT Brussels correspondent Henry Foy, who, according to media reports, was on board von der Leyen’s jet. Foy has some questions to answer. If he was on board and writes that the plane “had to circle the airport for an hour,” this is a demonstrably lie. However, the EU Commission is responsible for the political part of the hoax. As Foy put it: “The trip was designed to bring attention to the threat posed by Russia.” And for that, the EU and the Financial Times evidently seized on the lie. However, it is an equally great scandal that the entire media, which so willingly spread this lie on Sunday and Monday, has not yet corrected itself or even apologized.
And from the FT´s own interview transcript with Foy on Sept. 2nd.
(IMO this is – to use official lingo – “malign government influence on journalism” turning it into PR or political activism serving the interest to further the biggest war in Europe since 1945.i.e. criminal.)
Transcript: Russia suspected of GPS interference on EU official’s flight
Josh Gabert-Doyon talks to Henry Foy and Gloria Li
https://www.ft.com/content/383dab81-01bd-4e7d-994a-3988be8b7c7b
Josh Gabert-Doyon:
What is the European Commission, what are other EU officials saying about this?
Henry Foy:
The commission confirmed our reporting and confirmed that this was being treated as a suspected Russian interference operation. They’ve said that frankly, this justifies the trip. It shows the constant, daily, almost, efforts by Russia to destabilise frontline eastern European states. It makes clear how countries in the East can’t treat this as business as usual. They need to invest in their defence and security. And not just things we think about around military and tanks and troops, but civil infrastructure and cyber security and things that protect the infrastructure we take for granted every single day, such as GPS, airports, navigational systems. So, the Bulgarian services are obviously investigating to find out exactly how this took place and exactly who was behind it. But indeed, we flew out of Bulgaria with no incident. And today I’m speaking to you from Romania, which was the final stop on von der Leyen’s trip.
On Utopias, Imperial Decline, and Monterey, California Un-Diplomatic
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I knew a few people in the military that went to foreign language school in Monterey, back in the day.
Who needs that now when all you require is one word for foreign affairs…
Tariff
Our local utopia here lasted but 7 years from 1886 to 1892, and it had a definite socialist bent, with Marx and Engels looming large in their thinking.
The thing that did it in was the Southern Pacific railroad, you see they didn’t want a competitor in the logging business (the Kaweah Colony had planned to cut and mill all of the non Giant Sequoia trees and had cut a road to the Giant Forest) and via a helpful Congressman from the Sacramento area named Vandever, Southern Pacific made the land the colonists were going to use and owned legally… Sequoia NP, see ya later socialists!
https://48hills.org/2014/08/karl-marx-tree-southern-pacific-railroad-killed-socialist-colony-name-creating-yosemite-national-park/
Thanks for the link. In the 19th century it was the railways barons stomping down on such experiments as they were anti-capitalist. In the 21st century we have our Silicon Valley overlords for that.
The Octopus-A Story of California by Frank Norris in 1901, is a great novel based on Ag vs Southern Pacific, just before the advent of automobiles.
Thanks for mentioning!
Inspired one of Griffith´s best short movies I have ever seen, “Corner in Wheat.” Magnificent night. Shown on film stock. It truly proved the saying that there was silent movies and then sound movies and both were different art forms.
There is a beautiful book on “Corner in Wheat” by a classic film historian. Reproducing the original frames.
It quotes Godard: “What must the first transition in film history have looked and felt like.”
30 years ago the film was presented by Raymond Bellour in a carte blanche cinema event when TRAFIC was still operational
Beautiful ol´ times…
re: Rutte and Co.
Wonder what he and the other idiots would do if media stopped to report about their baloney plans once and for all. Just nobody would care anymore and not talk or comment. No media coverage at all. That´d be interesting to watch. Coz I don´t believe their claims for a second. They are trying to shock people into handing over their riches for completely insane and useless arms buildup. But they have nothing to back up their threats. Nothing. All they can do is create fiction. But if media (perhaps including the peace movement???) would ignore them that leverage would be gone too.
Like the old saying: Imagine there is war and nobody participates.
That would have been a great Monty Python sketch never made.
Perhaps more should be made of Europe’s invasion immunity as a result of being resource poor.
On various measures of resources such as oil, metals, fertilizer, Europe fares poorly.
This is a good defense from foreign invasion, having little an invader would want and having a large population for a potential invader to support.
Seems that this functions as excellent protection from foreign invasion.
Europe could recognize this inherent protection and save their defense money.
In the light of the insanity around here the argument might not stick (you should hear the conversations I have to conduct – it´s beyond reality) – however I had the same thought. Why not put out the argument and tell people: There is nothing here the Russians could want.
Of course it won’t stick. Admitting that “there is nothing here the Russians could want” means admitting being inferior to Russians. Germans admitting inferiority to Russians could not even happen in a Monty Python sketch, let alone reality. Same goes for Banderites (the German wannabes), that would rather all die than admit defeat.
points taken!
The Electronic Intifada, 9/5/25, a segment. Nora Barrows reads the broad, Gazan sitrep elements; the general situation is beyond dire. Fortunately for her compassionate heart, and ours, there is a very short clip of children playing, but the long, broad facts on the ground are of crushing.
At this rate, Gaza City will be destroyed in 60 days, with Nora Barrows-Friedman
Wake up the World!
You can’t wake up someone who is pretending to be asleep.
https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1963997078125724088
The bolo badges on the bloke is nuts …. been there and done that …. thank you for your service lmmao.
re: UKR – RU – language – culture wars
speaking of insanity? Or: A reason for the failure of the Left…
JACOBIN
How Language Is Weaponized in Wartime Ukraine
By Oleksandr Kyselov
Russian-speaking Ukrainians are among the main victims of Vladimir Putin’s invasion, and many have served in the Ukrainian army. The call to “decolonize” Ukraine by banishing Russian ignores this, imposing a vision of narrow cultural homogeneity.
https://jacobin.com/2025/09/russian-language-ukraine-weaponized-war
intro:
“(…)
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, continues to insist that without full recognition of the rights of Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine, no peace is possible. “Our goal was, and remains, to protect the Russian people who have lived on this land for centuries,” he told an interviewer on August 19. Meanwhile, Russia bombs the very cities where most of these Russian-speakers live, laying waste to their homes and scattering their families. It’s protection by annihilation.
Few doubt the imperial nature of Russia’s aggression. Yet some in Ukraine still fall for the occupier’s formal pretexts and provide an inverted version of its script — treating language as a marker of loyalty to Ukraine and policing cultural identity. Take activist Sviatoslav Litynskyi, who argued that the language barrier “corresponds to the front line,” helping to uphold Ukraine’s defenses as much as the army. Or Serhii Prytula, a celebrity volunteer, who said that the Russian spoken on the streets is “a tool of Russia’s expansion,” and that those who use it become tools themselves.
This is the move: turn language from a means of communication into a “security” issue: Russian becomes a weapon, Ukrainian a shield. Once framed that way, everyday differences between ordinary people look like a danger. For a society already exhausted by war, austerity, and decades of institutional neglect, this narrow framing of belonging is a form of self-harm. Instead of building solidarity and bridging divides, political discourse increasingly insists that true unity requires cultural homogeneity.
(…)”
Maybe a mildly OT post here, but there is this Polish blogger expressing similar thoughts.
https://drignacynowopolski.substack.com/p/a-few-words-of-truth-about-ukraine
Community, enjoy.