Links 10/6/2025

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1. The Rev Kev October 6, 2025 at 7:14 am

   ‘Lord Bebo
   @MyLordBebo
   Oct 5
   🇺🇸 It is now 18 months since Key Bridge fell in Baltimore.
   As of last week, this is the total rebuilding progress so far.
   WOW’

   I don’t suppose giving the Chinese the contracts for repairing that bridge was ever an option, was it? They probably would have chucked in a free monorail going under that bridges and free wifi to boot.

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   1. PlutoniumKun October 6, 2025 at 8:05 am

      The works shown in that clip are not rebuilding the bridge – they are removal and demolition works for the remains of the former bridge – these works started in July and are scheduled for 9 months.

      It is being replaced with a significantly larger (wider, longer, higher clearance) new structure – a cable-stay design – along the same alignment – the preliminary design was completed and approved in February this year. The opening is scheduled for 2028. This is actually an extraordinarily tight deadline – equivalent bridges (in China or anywhere else) are very rarely complete within 3 years of initial ground breaking, let alone getting designed and pushed through the regulatory system. A minimum of 2-3 years for site investigation, design and preliminary works and then 4-5 years would be the normal timescale for a project of this scale. Some major bridges (such as the Kerch Strait bridge) have been built a little faster, but usually only by throwing a lot of money at the project and cutting corners with design and construction.

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      1. mrsyk October 6, 2025 at 9:27 am

         I’m skeptical that the bridge will ever be completed. The access to and functionality of the Port of Baltimore has always been the (unspoken) top priority. I expect that once the channel is nicely cleaned up and modernized, enthusiasm for funding the bridge will run thin. I hope I’m wrong.

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         1. chris October 6, 2025 at 2:01 pm

            That bridge was a major part of the traffic patterns for trucking on I95. It will be completed. The construction of the upgraded bridge will also permit improvements to the supports which became mandatory after the original was completed. These will assist with preventing future collisions.

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      2. Rod October 6, 2025 at 10:52 am

         CBS report: first ‘test’ piling driven deeper than originals because new bridge will be bigger and shifting new construction South a bit so demo work and new work can go on simultaneously.
         That ‘Logistics’ dance is critical…

         https://link.constructiondive.com/click/41854332.62228/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY2JzbmV3cy5jb20vYmFsdGltb3JlL25ld3MvdGVzdC1waWxlLWluc3RhbGxlZC1yZWJ1aWxkLWJhbHRpbW9yZS1rZXktYnJpZGdlLW1hcnlsYW5kLXdlcy1tb29yZS8/606b067ad63f57043e710e29B9535bda6

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         1. PlutoniumKun October 6, 2025 at 1:41 pm

            The strategy of ‘keep knocking in piles until one holds’ is a reassuringly old fashioned approach to major construction projects. One reason the design stage can be so long these days is the desire for absolute certainty about all potential variables, something which financial managers love, but is often unrealistic. How this will impact on budget projections though will be the next big problem.

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            1. marku52 October 6, 2025 at 3:16 pm

               OR DOT was building a railroad over pass bridge in LaPine OR. They did not sink their test holes down far enough, and once they began putting the concrete on ramps in, the whole thing began settling due to undetected deep soft lake sediments. Whole project is abandoned… Future archeologists will explain the remains as religious monument to concrete.
               https://www.instagram.com/p/DArcbmLNfri/

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      3. ArvidMartensen October 6, 2025 at 5:45 pm

         “Extraordinarily tight deadline”
         Brings to mind my old rule of thumb – QRST
         Q (= Quality) R (= Resources) S (= Scope) T (= Time)

         So, if they plan to cut Time, then one or more of the following will happen
         If Scope (design) and Resources are held constant, then Quality must be lowered
         If Quality and Resources are held constant, then Scope (Design) must be lowered
         If Quality and Scope are held constant, then the skilled Resources needed must be increased
         etc

         So, if they are cutting time, and they don’t throw a lot of extra, skilled resources at it, and they keep the design the same, then I wouldn’t use it if I lived there.

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2. none October 6, 2025 at 7:31 am

   I watched a little bit of Gary’s Economics on youtube. Is that guy considered legit? He is something of an equality reductionist (maybe that’s ok) and he’s rather full of himself. He is fairly easy to listen to though, and he makes everything sound so simple. That last, of course is always a worry: maybe too simple.

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   1. TiPi October 6, 2025 at 8:38 am

      That is a very interesting comment.

      Gary and fellow UK tax campaigner Richard Murphy, have been identified as being on the ‘same side’ as regards taxing wealth as members of the commentariat in the UK , but both plough their own furrows and have seemingly incompatible views on how to do the job in detail.

      Both propose taxing ‘flows’ rather than ‘stocks’ which might raise more tax revenues but does nothing much to recognise, let alone reduce, inequality. Their tax reform proposals are to increase revenues from the wealthy, to permit lower tax takes from the poorer sections of society, but only on very limited grounds.

      Murphy is against LVT and wealth taxes, arguing they are both too difficult to implement. I have not seen any proposal from him that effectively taxes stocks of wealth, so can only assume he accepts current patterns of wealth distribution.

      Gary made a lot of money as a bankster, prior to his Damascene conversion, and now seems to be in favour of a oneoff wealth tax, but I heard him argue against taxing those same stocks of wealth only a few years ago, so am unsure of his actual ethical position.

      Neither is a socialist. As far as I can see, both are liberal capitalists. Some of Murphy’s critics label him as ‘far left’ – but that is simply ignorance and a desire to denigrate by attacking the person not the argument.

      Neither seems to argue their case on socialist egalitarian principles or even the pragmatic positions against social decay taken by Wilkinson and Pickett in the “Spirit Level” (now 15 years old) in recording the pernicious impacts of inequality, or the social equity arguments of Piketty in his book. (now 12 years ago).

      Personally, I find both are more than a “bit full or themselves”, and that seems to preclude much co-operation in their campaigning – which is a shame as they clearly have a lot of common ground, and both are articulate within their specialised fields.
      These days being a polemicist is a career choice, and both Richard and Gary need to make a living.
      Social media amplifies polemic discourse and generates clicks, so encourages more red-top style disputatious blogging.

      Of course, Murphy has fallen out with most of his previous MMT allies, and Gary gets an awfie lot of right wing pushback from his erstwhile finance sector chums. Alliances in this vaguely left of centre grouping seem fragile, which is a shame.
      Even Steve Keen and Bill Mitchell, both highly reputable heterodox economic academics, sadly have a major disagreement on the import/export issue within MMT.

      I think in the UK Lord Prem Sikka is probably the main voice of reasoned argument for many on the left on tax reform.
      He actually uses facts and figures to support his views, and has increased credibility as a result.
      He does not rely on blog revenues, and that helps his independence and rationality.
      I am not quite sure why he accepted his elevation to the House of Lords, which would seem to contradict his personal values, but it does not appear to be motivated by self aggrandisement, unlike so many commentators.

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      1. Anonymous 2 October 6, 2025 at 10:34 am

         I think that is possibly a bit harsh on Gary. If he is to be believed, I doubt he needs to make a living as he claims to have millions saved from his time as a banker. I do not know him but what I see online I find appealing in as much as he is someone who appears, although having grown up ‘on the wrong side of the tracks’, not to have lost touch with his childhood friends despite becoming rich himself. Some of his campaigning appears motivated by the realisation that, unless property prices in the UK come down, his old friends will never be able to afford to buy their own home.

         Yes, he is a bit of a single issue campaigner but I think that is because he has decided he needs to concentrate his efforts on one issue (excessive wealth damaging society – his catch phrase seems to be ‘tax wealth not work’) to have an impact. He is clearly disillusioned with Labour, though I imagine he comes from a traditional Labour family.

         I would describe him as an egalitarian of sorts rather than a liberal capitalist, as he clearly considers that the UK needs to be a far more equal society. I have never heard him opine on the merits or otherwise of socialism.

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         1. TiPi October 6, 2025 at 11:40 am

            I wish Gary would articulate a coherent scenario for wealth redistribution, as he has both the opportunity and the audience, but have not seen a consistent approach from him yet. If that is harsh, then fair enough.

            I can’t really see him as an egalitarian until he articulates wealth redistribution from ‘stocks’ as well as ‘flows’.

            He is not an MMT supporter, which separates him from Murphy, who partially accepts MMT. I find that curious, but apparently Gary has repeated some of the current conventional wisdom recently which seems to have irritated Richard on his blog.

            He still needs to maintain a high profile, as do all in the commentariat, and still frequently promotes his book.

            He was very good on Question Time recently against a hostile panel and chairperson.

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      2. Revenant October 6, 2025 at 12:24 pm

         Murphy is a dogmatic fool on the topic of a wealth tax and land value target. He refuses to concede in any of his pieces or his responses to the comments that the UK already has a wealth tax! And he offers no decent arguments against either other than “it would be too hard”.

         Assets in discretionary trusts are taxed every ten years at a rate of up to 6% of asset value (and assets removed before a ten year anniversary are taxed pro rata at the last tax rate applied). The tax works just fine and is administered without issue.

         If anything, the tax is absurdly complicated because it has to deal with discretionary trust tax regime and therefore the domicile of the settlor, the situs of the assets, the relationship of settlor and beneficiaries, various kinds of reliefs with elaborate rules such as business property relief and agricultural property relief, the impact of borrowing against assets, the income vs capital status of accrued and/or undistributed income and various anti-avoidance rules, such as whether the settlor’s children can benefit in their minority. The tax also has to deal administratively with the valuation of real property, of financial assets (e.g. shares) and with debt.

         The tax could be radically simplified because most of the complications are the result of successive governments incoherently trying to maintain the confiscatory punitive nature of inheritance tax (soak the rich!) while exempting special cases (special pleading) from its scope, starting with their non-domiciled donors! If the tax extended to individuals with wealth above a symbolic £1m and the real property aspects were hived off into a proper land value tax, it would be trivial to administer and collect.

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   2. chris October 6, 2025 at 2:11 pm

      At this point, I would prefer major overhauls to our concept of taxation. Taxing income is ridiculous when the people with the most liquidity can use gimmicks to have zero income. Taxing earners more than owners is also ridiculous. It would be nice if we could shift tax policy to consumption based approaches. A VAT combined with a negative income tax, or some other sort of credit to shield the poor from the VAT, would be preferable to what we have now in the US. And if we have to give fiscal and financial levers for our government to manipulate, then I’d rather they go after the people who are consuming a lot compared to the people who are not impacting the environment or their local areas in terms of water, power, food, etc.

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      1. ArvidMartensen October 6, 2025 at 5:58 pm

         The tax systems in the western world, and their inherent inequities, have cost a lot of rich people a lot of money to create.

         They had to pay significant money to elect politicians who would make taxes more inequitable, had to pay significant money to create think tanks to sway policy towards inequity, and had to pay significant money to run the right media campaigns to discredit anyone wanting a more equitable system etc

         In what world are they going to say, hey, let’s call that money sunk costs and start again.

         The problem starts with the rich. Anyone who develops a credible plan to remove their influence will be disposed of one way or another, especially as we head for the totalitarianism of the rich enabled by AI.

         The problem isn’t that we can’t afford to feed the poor, it is that we can never satisfy the rich.

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3. AG October 6, 2025 at 7:55 am

   re: US interventions since 1776 study

   hmmmm

   This is another English-language interview by German Michael Holmes from German blog NACHDENKSEITEN.

   This time on how bad – or good – US intervention(ism) has been – with Sidita Kushi from Mount Holyoke College and a major data study “„Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of U.S. Foreign Policy“”

   Sidita Kushi is a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College and co-author of the book “Dying by the Sword: The Militarization of US Foreign Policy.” The data is based on the most comprehensive data set on US foreign policy: the Military Intervention Project. It records all uses of military force since 1776. In an interview, Kushi explains that the US has never shown military restraint at any point in its history. As early as the 19th century, it waged countless wars against indigenous nations and expanded its power in Latin America and the Pacific. Later, it intervened militarily in every region of the world. According to Kushi, the history of the US is, from the very beginning, the history of an empire extremely prone to intervention. The interview was conducted by Michael Holmes.

   70 min.
   https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=139995

   It´s a bit like being warped backed in time.

   Views which one used to laugh about stated by post-Reaganites like Thomas Carothers are now experiencing a revival. Judge for yourself. But after the first third comes that aha-moment, when Kushi argues in favour of the Kosovo bombing.

   What the hell happened? What have these young people been reading since? Was I on planet Mars back when protesting, when argueing with people, when writing letters? How is this rewriting of history possible?
   Of course it is more progressive and honest than pro-US stances by ivory tower-ers in the past.

   But ideas about the benign empire have been actual book and study titles for ages. It´s not willing to die.

   I haven´t read the study itself yet. It´s data sets are available free she says. The study itself is not.

   Some flaws in the conversation which are puzzling:
   Holmes in the interview is forgetting that 80% of US bombs fell on South Vietnam not the North.
   Srebrenica is not a closed case at all.
   NATO bombing in 1999 was simply illegal.
   No mention of how controversial the Kosovo independence in reality was.
   (re: Holmes – I probably met more Kosovars in my life than Holmes, most are in favour of indepedence but that still doesn´t make it right.)
   Even less so the fact that Germany was leading on in the destruction of Yugoslavia.
   I wonder why they keep using the term “policeman” for the US.
   Not to speak of scholarship from outside the empire.

   I also don´t follow Holmes. On the one hand he always parades around his visiting the Global South. But when it comes to qualitative assessments of casualties he time and again turns very eurocentric. At least he is strangely flip-flopping.

   It is an engaging conversation. But with some major bumps which need further serious discussion of a fundamental nature. It cannot be that in 2025 (2023 published) a study on empire of this size repeats talking points which we have been familiar with already in the Cold War.

   Kushi would like to do a study about other empires for comparison. But needs the funding.
   She mentions British, French, Russian.
   I am curious what she would be saying if one suggested to her that e.g. the 3-5M dead in RU in the 1990s due to excess deaths could be attributed to US empire too.

   She has various categories of intervention in the study as the nature and level of US involvement is concerned. Some more direct than others. After all it has 400 pages.

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   1. hk October 6, 2025 at 12:04 pm

      I am curious where she places US’s brutal illegal, unprovoked, and full scale invasion of the Confederacy. (Tongue in cheek, sure, but American scholars, especially, have shown a disturbing inclination to count CSA analogues as independent countries subject to an “external” invasion when counting comparable wars.)

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      1. LifelongLib October 6, 2025 at 3:35 pm

         FWIW I recall asking my mom decades ago what the U.S. should do if the South tried to secede again. Her reply: “Let ’em go and build a wall”. Even then there were a lot of people who (tongue not entirely in cheek) thought we’d be better off if the Confederacy had won.

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      2. AG October 7, 2025 at 9:26 am

         Interesting question.
         She does mention covering US interventions against American natives and against “South of the border” area and CSA in general.
         I assume the most interesting of her findings are actually of that very early period.

         p.s. Coz I dont need another scholar telling me stuff about The Pentagon and Langley following good intentions when in fact killing people by the millions, a subject that has been covered by historians more maturely decades before. So I do wonder about the real value of her time invested. She clearly is serious and honest.
         On the other hand she probably has some constraints due to funding. Otherwise
         1) she would not want to sell this study for real money
         2) she would not encounter those obstacles to get new funding for her follow-up surveys including other nations. In fact I´m not sure I want to know how botched her potential Russia study would turn out now in post SMO-era 😳. With CIA-vetted “data sets”? And probably not speaking a word Russian? OMG.

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4. Ben Panga October 6, 2025 at 8:02 am

   Re: Mount Everest rescue under way after snowstorm traps nearly 1,000 people

   “The weather this year is not normal. The guide said he had never encountered such weather in October. And it happened all too suddenly.”

   I’m the other side of the mountain range and I hear this refrain a lot. I’ve also heard it in every country I’ve visited the last year or so.

   Here, it’s not bad. Unseasonably cold (and we don’t have heating) and heavy rain the last 36 hours but no disasters. The state, Himachal Pradesh, is only slowly recovering from August and September’s cloudburst initiated floods and landslides. Life is precarious here, and nature is powerful. The people here are nice, and do not abuse nature; they still pay the price of other’s actions.

   As everywhere else, nature is disturbed and I fear for the future. Some days I feel I don’t want to see how this all turns out.

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   1. PlutoniumKun October 6, 2025 at 8:13 am

      I’ve been on both sides of the range and yes – weather systems nearly everywhere in the world have been off the charts this year. I visited Tingri County in late September many years ago and it was considered then normal to be getting cold, but very dry weather – I don’t think any substantial snow was ever anticipated so early. If it was, nobody told me, I was equipped for sharp cold and altitude sickness only. HP is very beautiful, but also of course a very precarious landscape. I’ve hiked and cycled in Ladakh and nowhere else in the world I’ve been do you feel so much on the outer edge of where people can live. And yet the locals are incredibly calm and warm.

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5. Ben Panga October 6, 2025 at 8:08 am

   Re: Chinese exoskeletons

   Anduril’s Palmer Luckey (AKA Dollar Store Tony Stark) is into these as well.

   “Find in page: exoskeleton”:

   https://podcasts.happyscribe.com/shawn-ryan-show/171-palmer-luckey-superhuman-soldiers-ai-missiles-and-exoskeletons-in-warzones

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   1. The Rev Kev October 6, 2025 at 10:26 am

      You look at the Chinese soldiers on parade and realize that they are not large men. I wondered about what sort of load-out those soldiers could carry in combat and if it would be sufficient. If these exoskeletons work in field trials and are then issued to combat troops, that problem kinda goes away. In fact, they are suggesting that they might be able to carry a rifle with a larger caliber because of how much extra weigh they could carry. It will be interesting to see how far this goes.

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   2. .human October 6, 2025 at 10:52 am

      So much for a weapons firing stance. I want to see them move aroumd in these things.

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   3. PlutoniumKun October 6, 2025 at 11:20 am

      DARPA and other US agencies (and no doubt other countries) have been doing prototypes of these since the 1980’s. The HULC (I do love the names they come up with) was one of the more serious designs.

      These look cool in controlled conditions, but the limitation seems to be basic physics – the need for constant power. For real world use they seem to need huge battery packs.

      The human body is an amazing endurance and load carrying design, and extremely energy efficient. It will take a lot of technology and extremely powerful battery packs to significantly upgrade its capacities.

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      1. The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit October 6, 2025 at 1:54 pm

         Not so sure about “amazing … load carrying design,” you might want to check with some dotmil guys and their lower backs on that. ;-)

         Otherwise, “yup.” Particularly the part about needing more and better Duracells…

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      2. skippy October 6, 2025 at 3:31 pm

         Festool does it again – https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=exoactive+exoskeleton

         Basically to reduce upper body fatigue associated with arms over the shoulder work. I have not tried it but, can see its benefit at my work. Per se if was doing a lot of high sanding with my Planex 220mm drywall sander prepping old Queenslander VJ high ceilings and walls. Same would apply for rolling/deck brush paint on them. Hence why I still workout everyday to keep fit and reduce risk of injury, especially at my age – 64.

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      3. ArvidMartensen October 6, 2025 at 6:02 pm

         So, shoot their battery pack and game over Player 1 ?

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         1. Ksum Nole October 7, 2025 at 6:37 am

            It’s “shoot anywhere” and game over. Neither soldiers, nor the construction, are bulletproof. For that, heavy armor plates would have to be added on top. And that would require bigger & stronger exoskeleton and power source. Something like Power Armor from Fallout video game series.
            https://www.sideshow.com/blog/best-power-armor-fallout-series

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   4. nyleta October 6, 2025 at 3:58 pm

      These are not meant to help with lugging more equipment, they are tuned to steady the human rifle aiming mechanism after quick exertion, thus saving your soldiers lives. Trained soldiers are a valuable resource.

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      1. principle October 6, 2025 at 5:02 pm

         Nothing says “trained soldiers are a valuable resource” like standing out in the open, and blasting. It’s like a Rambo movie, but with more clothes and a smaller gun. :)

         In real life situation, soldiers take cover (that also tend to give a place to rest rifle on, which provides steady aim), or at least lie on the ground (which also gives steady aim). In order to have some justification for not having a cover and a place to rest the rifle on, he should be at least moving. I wonder how easy it is for him to run, or lie down fast, or jump in and out of trenches and trough the windows, or to get in and out of a vehicle, or to ride a motorcycle.

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6. AG October 6, 2025 at 8:13 am

   2x JACOBIN

   Everything Is Becoming a Bank

   By Luke Goldstein

   Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling productive capacity and setting the stage for the next crash.

   https://jacobin.com/2025/10/bankification-financialization-debt-interest-credit

   Emmanuel Macron Doubles Down on Austerity

   By Harrison Stetler

   France’s new prime minister has resisted calls to suspend Emmanuel Macron’s 2023 pension reform. While left-wing opposition parties want to undo Macron’s agenda, the president is defending his attacks on welfare as a prized legacy.

   https://jacobin.com/2025/10/macron-france-insoumise-rassemblement-budget-bloquons

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   1. Yves Smith October 6, 2025 at 9:31 am

      Um, where has he been? We wrote in ECONNED (2010) how big companies ran their Treasury operations as trading centers, to make a profit. Retailers used to have their own credit cards (they then sold them to the likes of GE Capital, or went with co-branded cards with the likes of American Express and Citi, where the latter did the back end). Manufacturers regularly engaged in financing their sales. Auto companies have long been financing sales and leases.

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      1. KLG October 6, 2025 at 9:53 am

         Just another reason why Jacobin is a dumbed down version of Dissent and NLR with color pictures. I can’t remember why I still subscribe…Who does not know that GE became a badly run bank ages ago?

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         1. AG October 6, 2025 at 11:53 am

            They are attemtping to cover too many subjects I get the impression.

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      2. AG October 6, 2025 at 11:56 am

         Yep. But maybe just trying to call readers´ attention to the problem including a few updated examples (Klarna, Apple Pay, OpenAI). Also JACOBIN is always tying in political activist tendencies. Which hurts the journalistic substance though.

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      3. vao October 6, 2025 at 1:25 pm

         In Germany, the joke that Siemens is a bank with an electricity department (“eine Bank mit angeschlossener Elektroabteilung”) had been running for quite some time when I first heard about it, some 35 years ago.

         In 1997, Siemens set up a Siemens Financial Services GmbH. This firm eventually got a banking license in 2010.

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7. The Rev Kev October 6, 2025 at 8:17 am

   “ICE Wants to Build Out a 24/7 Social Media Surveillance Team”

   Why are they trying to re-invent the wheel? This has probably been happening for many years now so all ICE would have to do is to plug into the system in use at the moment. Certainly all the social media corporations are already feeding all the raw feed to some government agency. Privacy? What’s that? They couldn’t even tolerate Tik Tok as it was not under their control.

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   1. JBird4049 October 6, 2025 at 2:09 pm

      ICE is empire building, not trying to get more information. It’s more about ego gratification than doing a job.

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   2. Adam1 October 6, 2025 at 2:13 pm

      DOGE farmed it out to AI and ICE is now finding it doesn’t work so they need a new team humans. (sarc)

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8. lou strong October 6, 2025 at 8:26 am

   For those interested , another witness about the treatment in Israel for the Sumud guys (J.Nivoi , Genoa dockworkers union )

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznAxnTCV5Q&t=619s

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9. vao October 6, 2025 at 8:26 am

   Let us see:

   1) Czech populist Andrej Babis is a billionaire;
   2) Donald Trump, touted as a populist, is a billionaire;
   3) Silvio Berlusconi, Italian populist, was a billionaire;
   4) Thaksin Shinawatra, once populist head of government in Thailand, another billionaire;
   5) in Switzerland, Christoph Blocher was also a populist and billionaire;
   6) Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Philippino populist, and of course billionaire.

   Comparatively, other populist politicians such as Jörg Haider (Austria, 15-45 million), or Raila Odinga (Kenya, 300-350 million) look like indigent strivers.

   There was a time when populists came from the military or some middle-class occupation, and were not extraordinarily wealthy before ascending to the highest political positions.

   The 21st century is truly the century of plutocracy.

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   1. lyman alpha blob October 6, 2025 at 9:56 am

      Some wag once said the scariest words in the English language are “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Run government like a business, they said for decades. Seems to me this is exactly what the political class wanted, and now they’re getting it, good and hard. Of course it’s the rest of us who bear the brunt of the consequences.

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   2. Colonel Smithers October 6, 2025 at 11:43 am

      Thank you.

      I’m in Italy and visited the Borromean Islands on Saturday.

      In one opulent room on Isola Bella’s palace, I noticed some Swiss German accents. For some reason, they reminded me of Blocher, the oligarch and descendant of nazi sympathisers pretending to be an ordinary Beat.

      From 2007 – 16, I often worked in Switzerland, including with Patrick Odier. We chuckled at how many of his eponymous firm’s clients were leading SVP / UDC supporters and led lives far removed from the party’s supporters.

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   3. Mikel October 6, 2025 at 11:48 am

      The GFC showed this global economic system in search of trillionaires needed to be thrown into the dustbin.
      There’s no will to reform it and it is not something reformable.
      The purveyors of the madness now must show their fangs, get more vicious puppets, and make bigger power grabs.

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   4. schmoe October 6, 2025 at 1:20 pm

      -And let me tell you, JB Pritzker* is a REAL BILLIONAIRE! And don’t forget it!

      * His father died with a $15b estate, per Wiki, but I apparently JB pulled himself up by his bootstraps and overcame that disadvantage.

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      1. Duke of Prunes October 6, 2025 at 5:44 pm

         When he first ran for governor, one of his first commercials that I recall was a nostalgic opus to being raised by a single mother. Poor little JB, raised by a single mother, struggling to make ends meet. See, he is just like you.

         Somebody must have sent him a clue because it disappeared very early in the campaign.

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10. Ben Panga October 6, 2025 at 8:30 am

    Re: the flotilla tweet

    According to D’Agostino and multiple accounts, Israeli forces subjected Greta to severe cruelty, forcing her to crawl and kiss the Israeli flag…

    …Greta Thunberg was wrapped in the Israeli flag like a war trophy. They sat her in a corner; officers surrounded her, taking selfies.

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    1. The Rev Kev October 6, 2025 at 8:37 am

       That sort of thing may play well in downtown Tel Aviv and out in the Settlements but if those images make it out to the internet, most of the world will simply conclude that Israeli soldiers & officers are just a bunch of d****. Even people that don’t particularly like Greta Thunberg.

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       1. leaf October 6, 2025 at 1:39 pm

          >Even people that don’t particularly like Greta Thunberg
          Case in point on the American Conservative of all places:
          https://www.theamericanconservative.com/greta-thunberg-leads-the-way/

          Reply ↓
    2. bertl October 6, 2025 at 9:27 pm

       Well, how else can a well armed group of depraved psychotic Zionazis feel like men if they aren’t allowed to force an unarmed young woman to crawl across the ground wearing the devil’s flag? Evil is the only world they know.

       Reply ↓
11. AG October 6, 2025 at 9:06 am

    re: 70 years of Bandung

    BERLINER ZEITUNG

    machine-translation

    The Spirit of Bandung: The Global South and its Role in a New World Order
    Countries of the Global South will shape the future of our world. But first, the damage caused by neocolonialism must be repaired.

    by Abhishek Roy Choudhury
    https://archive.is/rYRQG

    the kind of simple points perhaps good for a kitchen conversation:

    “(…)
    Enormous dimensions

    The dimensions are enormous: In 2015 alone, according to Jason Hickel’s study “Drain from the Global South through Unequal Exchange” (2022), the Global North reaped $10.8 trillion in profits from the Global South. This sum is derived from a net gain of twelve billion tons of raw materials, 822 million hectares of land, 21 exajoules of energy – equivalent to 3.4 billion barrels of oil – and 392 billion labor hours. Various studies show that since 1960, a total of $152 trillion has been withdrawn from the Global South through unequal trade, such as the undervaluation of southern raw materials, corresponding to an average loss of $2.2 trillion per year in economic growth.

    For example, Cameroonian Robusta coffee farmers receive only two percent of the selling price of instant coffee in the UK , while Western companies reap the lion’s share of profits through branding and distribution. France has 2,436 tons of gold reserves despite having no mines. Mali, one of Africa’s largest gold producers, produced 66.5 tons in 2023, but almost half the population lives in poverty, while Western corporations make enormous profits with low taxes.
    (…)”

    Hickel´s study

    Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015
    https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X

    Abstract
    Unequal exchange theory posits that economic growth in the “advanced economies” of the global North relies on a large net appropriation of resources and labour from the global South, extracted through price differentials in international trade. Past attempts to estimate the scale and value of this drain have faced a number of conceptual and empirical limitations, and have been unable to capture the upstream resources and labour embodied in traded goods. Here we use environmental input-output data and footprint analysis to quantify the physical scale of net appropriation from the South in terms of embodied resources and labour over the period 1990 to 2015. We then represent the value of appropriated resources in terms of prevailing market prices. Our results show that in 2015 the North net appropriated from the South 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labour, worth $10.8 trillion in Northern prices – enough to end extreme poverty 70 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled $242 trillion (constant 2010 USD). This drain represents a significant windfall for the global North, equivalent to a quarter of Northern GDP. For comparison, we also report drain in global average prices. Using this method, we find that the South’s losses due to unequal exchange outstrip their total aid receipts over the period by a factor of 30. Our analysis confirms that unequal exchange is a significant driver of global inequality, uneven development, and ecological breakdown.

    Reply ↓
    1. gf October 6, 2025 at 5:24 pm

       Mind boggling if accurate.

       Reply ↓
12. Steve H. October 6, 2025 at 9:08 am

    * red thingee… *

    I asked a guesstion about Trump and voting machines and got this:

    > FactChecking Trump’s Claims About Mail-In Ballots, Voting Machines and States’ Role [Aug 19]
    >> The president began the day with a post on Truth Social saying he would “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES.” Trump said he was working on an executive order to target both voting methods. He repeated his intentions later in the day while answering reporters’ questions alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the White House.

    This ! concerns two chained possibilities, both unlikely but devastating, that Congress does not reconvene until the mid-terms, and that the next election or two gets nulled somehow. (The interview with Tita Parsi puts focus on the mid-terms, as does Cybele Canterele.) If the claim is executed that the voting machines are corrupted, then it could follow that there isn’t time to set up the mechanisms for a full election, until such time as…

    Another guesstion: Could the failure of a single state (or small number of states) to ratify the vote be enough to halt the national/presidential results from being implemented?

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk October 6, 2025 at 9:49 am

       I’m all for hand marked paper ballots counted in public, but I’m skeptical that’s where this is headed. I imagine Trump has his own brand of digital vote tallying machinery in the works that he would like to sell us.

       Reply ↓
       1. erstwhile October 6, 2025 at 10:29 am

          Voting will not get us out of this hole. If it could, then the cemeteries would be empty.

          Reply ↓
          1. Steve H. October 6, 2025 at 10:52 am

             Please help me with my misunderstanding that you are advocating against democracy.

             Reply ↓
             1. erstwhile October 6, 2025 at 11:58 am

                Let’s see. Trump vs biden. Trump vs. harris. That democracy? Or the real rulers of american capitalism, the billionaires, the millionaires, the foreign mega-donors (I’m looking at you, zionist entity.) This democracy? The oligarchs vs. everybody else. Oh, but wait, the oligarchs are always on the ballot, and they never lose. You have to realize that they own the elections, and the rest of the system.

                Reply ↓
                1. Steve H. October 6, 2025 at 12:08 pm

                   I’ll suggest that your faith in the stability of the system is limited in utility.

                   Churchill: democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time

                   Reply ↓
                   1. CanCyn October 6, 2025 at 12:53 pm

                      I think that what erstwhile is saying however is that we don’t have democracy. Therein lies the problem. I have long been disillusioned with voting. If we all parties just continue status quo or make things worse, then we don’t have a choice and we don’t have democracy.

                      Reply ↓
                      1. mrsyk October 6, 2025 at 1:10 pm

                         Sadly, chances are I will miss our performative democracy once faced with what may come next.

                         Reply ↓
                      2. Steve H. October 6, 2025 at 1:25 pm

                         Jimmy Carter said we’re in an oligarchy, but Douglas Rushkoff said the oligarchs are worried about their guards killing them.

                         My concern is how we negotiate a regressing civilization in the face of climate change. What are the means? Guns? Gold? Genotype? We’ve got two-&-a-half millenia seeing what’s under the hood of democracy. What are the alternatives?

                         Antidote.

                         Reply ↓
                      3. LawnDart October 6, 2025 at 2:20 pm

                         There is SOME democracy occasionally found at the local level in USA, but what we have at the state and especially at the federal levels, that sure as heck isn’t–

                         democracy
                         /dĭ-mŏk′rə-sē/

                         noun

                         •Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
                         •A political or social unit that has such a government.
                         •The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.

                         The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

                         No, this seems to fit much better, especially if you consider our elected officials merely as C-suite executives (and not the owners/investors themselves):

                         oligarchy
                         /ŏl′ĭ-gär″kē, ō′lĭ-/

                         noun

                         •Government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families.
                         •Those making up such a government.
                         •A state governed by a few persons.

                         The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

                         Reply ↓
             2. The Infamous Oregon Lawhobbit October 6, 2025 at 1:57 pm

                You mean “two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch?”

                That “democracy?”

                Yep, put me in the “advocating against” column.

                Reply ↓
                1. Steve H. October 6, 2025 at 5:21 pm

                   Would our illustrious Lawhobbit know if failure to ratify could stop an administration change? On the theory that running a train off-track is as effective as diverting it elsewhere, if the goal is to not arrive.

                   Reply ↓
             3. Polar Socialist October 6, 2025 at 2:30 pm

                I assume it’s a corollary to (often blamed to J. Swift) “you cannot reason a person out of a position he did not reason himself into in the first place.”

                Basically, you cannot vote a nation out a position it did not vote itself into.

                Most of The West have governments supported only by a minority of the electorate pushing for policies supported by even smaller minority, and that’s not supposed to be possible in democracies. So, there’s a possibility that we do not live in a democracy…

                Reply ↓
             4. thrombus October 7, 2025 at 7:07 am

                My (mis)understanding is that the thing presented as democracy is anything but.

                Reply ↓
       2. t October 6, 2025 at 11:08 am

          He’s not particularly bright for a prez, but he’s not dumb enough to leave elections to voters!

          Reply ↓
13. griffen October 6, 2025 at 9:18 am

    WSJ article on waiting for an American economic boom in 2026. Let’s see, no jobs data released last week given the US govt shutdown. Inflation is not resolved, based on a recent sample on prices for 12oz coffee as a family household staple that little tariff on Brazil exports is not lowering the cost of daily consumer goods and grocery items. This was the fudging plan really? I suppose stay invested in a Costco or Wal Mart, given their scale and logistics they can truly keep prices lower than otherwise they might reach.

    Yeah it’s a golden age of sorts, just you wait. FFS. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Baby you just ain’t seen nothing yet…”

    Reply ↓
14. Huey October 6, 2025 at 9:22 am

    Thanks Conor. A somewhat more depressing feed today but much preferred to remaining uninformed.

    Not really a Star Wars fan but it feels more and more like this is a crueler Empire Strikes Back.

    Reply ↓
15. The Rev Kev October 6, 2025 at 9:28 am

    ‘Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth)
    @adamscochran
    JFC!
    This judge had put blocks against the Trump admin which Trump and Miller screeched about.
    Just yesterday Miller’s response to this judge’s decision was claiming that the judiciary is shielding terrorism and that it should be dismantled. The next day her home blows up in a fiery explosion…’

    Can you imagine what would have happened if Miller was a hard-left figure making threats against a Republican Judge only to quickly see her home blown up? Trump would have declared martial law and sicked his goons on Miller for instigating an act of terrorism. Will Trump declare this bombing to be an act of terrorism?

    Reply ↓
    1. Morpheus October 6, 2025 at 10:16 am

       Just to add one more amazing fact to this completely ridiculous story. The judge in question is Jewish yet there has been no claim (that I can find) that this was an anti-semitic attack.

       How long before we hear that this was an attack by Hamas? Can we find an appropriate-looking person to pin it on? /sarc off

       Reply ↓
       1. lyman alpha blob October 6, 2025 at 10:21 am

          I’d be suspicious of people with Trump ties for sure, but these two public servants did have what looks like an extremely expensive piece of real estate. One doesn’t generally get that wealthy without having ticked someone off.

          Reply ↓
          1. erstwhile October 6, 2025 at 10:34 am

             WTF?

             Reply ↓
             1. lyman alpha blob October 6, 2025 at 11:03 am

                I’m just saying that there are a lot of possible explanations as to why this house went up in flames – there might be any number of people with an axe to grind against this couple (maybe the husband was a target, not the wife), and it could be a complete accident.

                I’m not saying people deserve to have their houses torched, for crying out loud.

                Reply ↓
                1. hk October 6, 2025 at 12:29 pm

                   The timing would be convenient, for sure. (It’s not uncommon for “accidents” to fall on unpopular pols or their enemies who also have other people with grudges against them in many parts of the world. Easy to deflect the suspicion, or, potentially, even a chance to claim “righteous anger” when caught.

                   Reply ↓
16. Jason Boxman October 6, 2025 at 9:45 am

    Greetings 1929!

    Paul Tudor Jones says ingredients are in place for massive rally before a ‘blow off’ top to bull market (CNBC)

    Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones believes the conditions are set for a powerful surge in stock prices before the bull market tops out.

    “My guess is that I think all the ingredients are in place for some kind of a blow off,” Jones said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Monday. “History rhymes a lot, so I would think some version of it is going to happen again. If anything, now is so much more potentially explosive than 1999.”

    The founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment said today’s market is reminiscent of the setup leading up to the burst of the dotcom bubble in late 1999, with dramatic rallies in technology shares and heightened speculative behavior. Jones said the circular deals or vendor financing happening in the artificial intelligence space today also made him “nervous.”

    The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite has bounced 117% from its April bottom to consecutive record highs. The rally has been driven by mega-cap tech giants, which have invested billions in AI and are being valued richly on the potential of this emerging era.

    The difference between now and 1999 is the U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, Jones noted. The Federal Reserve had just begun a new easing cycle, whereas rate hikes were on the way before the market top in 2000. The U.S. is now running a 6% budget deficit, while in 1999, there was a budget surplus in $99,000, Jones said.

    “That fiscal monetary combination is a brew that we haven’t seen since, I guess, the postwar period, early 50s,” he said.

    (bold mine)

    We can thank the Fed for making the situation worse.

    The working class hasn’t doubled its money since the April lows, though, that’s for sure.

    Reply ↓
    1. .human October 6, 2025 at 11:17 am

       The ‘economy’ was in the doldrums post dot-com bubble collapse, then 9/11 came along…

       Reply ↓
    2. Kurtismayfield October 6, 2025 at 11:52 am

       Yeah ok sure. Just ignore how much of the run up was AI, and ignore that AI just burns money, then everything is great! Its 1929 aga… oh wait.

       I am in treasuries right now, waiting this out. This summer was easy money on stocks but now there is too much uncertainty.

       Reply ↓
    3. griffen October 6, 2025 at 12:18 pm

       Trying to think of a good parallel company IPO now to compare from those late 90s boom era for mostly the investment banks, the lawyers and so forth on all the underwriting and fillings to go public. Added it was a boon to bottom lines of such business units back then, just not the best investment options for your average 401k or retiree.

       Pets.com versus well, IDK just yet. Clearly more than a few of those hundreds of IPO in years prior to that tech bubble bursting were more like the talking sock puppet than an actual company with revenue and actual earnings. Every week this year lately it seems a new partnership is announced of doing great and vast things of importance which also require great and vast sums of US $ billions.

       Okay I submit the bust candidate is not even public and may eventually become a viable for profit company worthy of an IPO. It’s Open AI. The CEO is apparently full of himself, so that ticks off several boxes when a singular talent is the narcissistic leader at the top of the totem pole. For the narcissist CEO type I give you, by example the former founder of Uber. His last name is escaping me just now but what a true as$hat.

       Reply ↓
       1. Jason Boxman October 6, 2025 at 5:10 pm

          WeWork was fun too. The filings literally were littered with his name, as the sole actual product of the heist. And he walked away with many billions of dollars.

          Reply ↓
17. caucus99percenter October 6, 2025 at 9:48 am

    Shock: new French PM Lecornu has already resigned after only 27 days in office.

    https://www.france24.com/en/france/20251006-france-new-pm-lecornu-resigns-hours-after-unveiling-cabinet-macron

    Reply ↓
18. Michaelmas October 6, 2025 at 10:02 am

    Thanks for the link to Warwick Powell’s ‘America Against Itself, redux.’

    How are things in the Exceptional Nation, the self-styled Shining Citty On a Hill?

    ‘Private security and fortification is a growing feature of American cities … projected to exceed US$170 billion by 2030, with residential spending outpacing commercial growth. Bulletproof glass demand, growing near 10% annually, mirrors the rise in private fortification….

    ‘…In 2024, the U.S. homicide rate remained 70% above pre-pandemic levels, despite declines elsewhere in the developed world. Gun-related deaths continue to exceed 47,000 annually…

    ‘… 2023 saw over 650 mass shootings in the United States – roughly two per day … Mass shootings have a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident….

    ‘…The opioid epidemic continues to claim more than 80,000 lives a year …Opioid deaths have quadrupled since 2000, with synthetic opioids like fentanyl now killing more Americans each year than all car accidents and gun homicides combined’

    Reply ↓
    1. Steve H. October 6, 2025 at 10:47 am

       Stoller >> And that would seem to be quite urgent; the U.S. is now a huge net food importer, which is both historically unusual and something of a crisis in waiting.

       Part of the IMF/World Bank playbook is to disallow a recipient country from growing their own food, switching to commodity crops. Another self-own?

       Reply ↓
       1. JBird4049 October 6, 2025 at 2:07 pm

          And just how does a country like the United States, which historically fed much of the planet, especially during drought and other disasters, become a net food importer?

          If we are a net importer, this implies bad things about the food system worldwide because America has always been the supplier of last resort, but if we can’t feed ourselves, we can’t be that anymore.

          Reply ↓
          1. ambrit October 6, 2025 at 4:48 pm

             Never underestimate greed and corruption. Since most of America’s food production is corporatized now, the decisions regarding crop choice and planting schedules are made from a financial point of view, not from any idea of the National Good.
             If there is money to be made and a bunch of American Deplorables have to starve as a result, then so be it. The Market has spoken!
             Stay safe. Plant a Victory Garden.
             Make America Grow (Food) Again!

             Reply ↓
             1. JBird4049 October 6, 2025 at 8:58 pm

                What you say makes sense.

                But deliberately starving a population especially to keep the wealth pumping to the wealthy from everyone else is The single most common reason for civil wars and civilizational collapse. Even if it is drought or other disasters beyond the control of the elites, it still can cause serious problems and if it is perceived as deliberate or even from mere incompetence, well, just watch the blood flow. And our economy looks to crash soon making food even more unaffordable.

                Yeah, I know that our current elites are unusually ignorant, unwise, and even suicidally stupid, but watching this happening as it happens is still mind blowing.

                Reply ↓
19. Wukchumni October 6, 2025 at 10:24 am

    Motion sensors in high-performance mice can be used as a microphone to spy on users, thanks to AI — Mic-E-Mouse technique harnesses mouse sensors, converts acoustic vibrations into speech Tom’s Hardware
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    My hopes that this was merely a wicked parody on Disney seem to have been dashed.

    Reply ↓
    1. ambrit October 6, 2025 at 4:51 pm

       Be very careful up there in the Defensible Position.
       There might be a secret laboratory hidden beneath the crumbling remains of the old Disney Mountain Resort scheme where marmots are being fitted out just like their rodentia cousins.

       Reply ↓
       1. Wukchumni October 6, 2025 at 8:33 pm

          Never Redoubt

          Reply ↓
20. Wukchumni October 6, 2025 at 10:32 am

    Magic mushrooms have been used in traditional ceremonies and for recreational purposes for thousands of years. However, a new study has found that mushrooms evolved the ability to make the same psychoactive substance twice. The discovery has important implications for both our understanding of these mushrooms’ role in nature and their medical potential.

    Magic mushrooms produce psilocybin, which your body converts into its active form, psilocin, when you ingest it. Psilocybin rose in popularity in the 1960s and was eventually classed as a Schedule 1 drug in the US in 1970, and as a Class A drug in 1971 in the UK, the designations given to drugs that have high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. This put a stop to research on the medical use of psilocybin for decades.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Use in the USA stems from a Life magazine article in 1957, and then the Beatniks wanted in, and the rest is history~

    “Seeking the Magic Mushroom” is a 1957 photo essay by amateur mycologist Robert Gordon Wasson describing his experience taking psilocybin mushrooms in 1955 during a Mazatec ritual in Oaxaca, Mexico. Wasson was one of the first Westerners to participate in a Mazatec ceremony and to describe the psychoactive effects of the Psilocybe species.

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

    Reply ↓
21. DJG, Reality Czar October 6, 2025 at 10:47 am

    The Grayzone: Klarenberg and Reed, two crackerjack muckrakers, on Mossad involvement in Italy for years, capped off with assassination of Aldo Moro (to avoid the historic compromise and to compromise Italian politics).

    The story reaches far back, to a book written some 15 years ago by Eric Salerno, an Italian-American journalist, who reported for Messaggero (not exactly the radical left) for years.

    There is probably too much underbrush for those who don’t live in Italy: The details are fairly well known, but you’d also have to have followed Italian politics for years. Those resident in Italy may want to read this article for confirmation of some assertions taken as fact in Italian discourse.

    In breve, the U.S. of A. has treated Italy as colony since WWII. It is hard to believe that the post-war constitution slipped through — the constitution that created a Republic, Based on Labor, is a revolutionary and leveling document.

    I guess that the alphabet soup of “intelligence” realized a tad later — the 1950s — that Italy truly is full of independent-minded Italians. Hence the various plots — including three attempted coups d’état — although the U.S. record in overthrowing the Greek government was sooo much more successful.

    Recently, there has been an upsurge in analysis that points out Italy’s status as a colony. One might consider the recent general strikes as a signal that many Italians don’t agree.

    Suffice it to say, the same cast of “intelligence” is also implicated in the assassination of President Mattarella’s brother Piersanti.

    I tend to doubt that Mossad was acting on its own all this while, and it seems that Italy is a test case for U.S. addiction to Israel as Enforcer.

    PS: As the Italians say, “nomen omen,” and in the case of Stoltenberg, the word “stolto” in Italian means dull and stupid. A sign from the gods!

    Reply ↓
    1. AG October 6, 2025 at 11:47 am

       Thanks!
       Will read.
       In Germany of course Moro was regarded as a rogue Brigate Rosse scheme via Gladio. Mossad never featured there.

       Klarenberg last year:
       Operation Gladio’s role in Aldo Moro murder confirmed
       https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/operation-gladio-s-role-in-aldo-moro-murder-confirmed
       No Mossad here either.

       Obviously I have to catch up…

       Reply ↓
    2. lyman alpha blob October 6, 2025 at 1:46 pm

       Thanks for highlighting that one DJG. Just finished reading it, and it was appalling even if you are familiar with some of it ahead of time. Very odd, or not, that Salerno’s book, has never been translated to English. Of course, most USonians have never heard of Operation Gladio either, and likely never will.

       I was also struck by this link from the article describing how that capsized yacht from a couple years ago that was in the news was actually full of spooks – somehow I’d never heard that latter bit of info, and I do try to keep up. https://www.timesofisrael.com/lake-maggiore-tour-boat-that-sank-was-carrying-israeli-and-italian-security-personnel/

       Reply ↓
22. farmboy October 6, 2025 at 11:06 am

    Matt Stoller’s excellent piece regarding Soy must include all classes of wheat. In the PNW 70 to 80% of the annual 200 million bushels are exported, mostly to Asia. the columbia River system of dams allows for effiecient movement of all northern tier grains to export destinations on the lower columbia to ports around the world.

    Reply ↓
23. Mikel October 6, 2025 at 11:50 am

    “Just because you have a freedom doesn’t mean you have to use it at every moment of every day”
    Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood

    From the world of the technocrats and bureaucrats. The types who want to also claim “progress” and “abundance”.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ben Panga October 6, 2025 at 7:55 pm

       You can protest, but only with state permission.

       A freedom that only applies when the state wants it to, is no kind of freedom at all.

       Brought to you by the genocide-facilitators of the UK’s “workers’ party”.

       I said here the night Starmer was elected that he’d “lean authoritarian” but I’m surprised how successful he’s been with it.

       Viva Plasticine!

       Reply ↓
24. Mikel October 6, 2025 at 11:58 am

    Trump’s Team Hones Message on Economy: Just Wait Until 2026 – WSJ

    Deny as long as possible…

    Reply ↓
25. Tom Stone October 6, 2025 at 12:05 pm

    I went to the Library book sale last weekend and among the books I did not buy was the official US Army improvised Munitions handbook, which appears to be very well written and comprehensive.
    There were also copies of the US Army Guerilla Warfare manual and the Special Forces handbook, $2 Each, in new condition.
    And all available from the GPO or Skyhorse publishing.
    God bless the first Amendment, if Trump knew about this He’d shit little green bricks.
    I did pick up a copy of Phil Sharpe’s “The rifle in America” and also Ed Parsons memoir of his time in the Lafayette Escadrille…Croix de Guerre with eight palms in 2 years.

    Reply ↓
    1. Peter Steckel October 6, 2025 at 12:23 pm

       Those books have been staples at gun shows and survivalist conventions for decades. One could buy the entire library of books like that for $1 a pop in the late 1990s…

       Reply ↓
       1. scott s. October 6, 2025 at 2:58 pm

          My thought as well. Missed this past weekend gun show here in Honolulu, but I can’t think of any show without a few tables offering this stuff.

          Reply ↓
    2. LawnDart October 6, 2025 at 6:21 pm

       “… also Ed Parsons memoir of his time in the Lafayette Escadrille…”

       On my mother’s side of the family, I can claim lineage to a squadron-mate of Mr. Parsons: James Norman Hall, who served Great Britain as an infantry-man, France as a pilot in the Layfayette Escadrille, then flying for the US Army. After the war he co-wrote Mutiny on the Bounty and several other books.

       If he returned to his hometown of Colfax, Iowa, after WWI ended, he did not stay for very long. He died in Tahati in his early 60s… probably a much better fate than living to a ripe old age in Iowa.

       Reply ↓
26. Mikel October 6, 2025 at 12:21 pm

    Amid deepening drone war with Ukraine, Kremlin imposes severe internet and cellphone shutdowns – WSWS
    That’s also like the limitations imposed in Iran back in June. That’s a feature of war, especially with the fears of the attacks these days that remind me of the movie When A Stranger Calls: “The call is coming from inside the house.”

    Ben Gvir to blow up Netanyahu’s coalition if Hamas ‘continues to exist’ after Trump deal – The Cradle

    “If the hostages are not released by the deadline that President Donald Trump set, Israel will return to fighting with the full support of all the involved countries,” Netanyahu threatened

    Reply ↓
    1. hk October 6, 2025 at 1:05 pm

       Wth are these “involved countries”?!?

       Reply ↓
       1. Mikel October 6, 2025 at 1:24 pm

          That would consist of a choice of countries involved with Israel. Takes more than walking out on a speech to isolate Israel.

          Reply ↓
    2. ArvidMartensen October 6, 2025 at 6:32 pm

       If I was a Hamas negotiator in Egypt, or anyone sitting or standing near them, I would make sure my will was up to date.

       A reprise of Qatar? Or a false flag? Perhaps a “Hamas” operative blowing up their own people, a bit like the “Russians” blew up Nord Stream.

       There’s a reason all those US military planes have headed for the Middle East.

       Reply ↓
27. Tom Stone October 6, 2025 at 12:24 pm

    It appears that anyone who protests the most moral Genocide in the history of the World is at least a Terrorist Sympathizer who needs to be watched closely and prevented from infecting others with their evil thoughts,
    If not jailed for their own protection and the protection of others, because Freedom is not Free.
    Or something like that, I am sure that our esteemed VP can explain this better than I can.

    Reply ↓
28. Mikel October 6, 2025 at 12:41 pm

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZvAH3XN2yk/
    Johnson and Nima mention that Iran is moving toward China’s GPS or tech for measure of safety.

    However, I was wondering if anyone has the scoop on just how much tech development China and Israel have done in conjunction with one another? Something more than general information like this:

    https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkxr3w7q1x/
    Israel-China tech ties persist amid political tensions

    Reply ↓
29. eg October 6, 2025 at 2:44 pm

    “Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?”

    Nowhere is this enshittification more blatantly obvious than in Amazon Prime video — there is a clear and obvious campaign underway to ramp up the frequency of ads (in a “service” which originally had NONE) such that the product is unwatchable without upgrading to a newly established paid tier.

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    1. ilsm October 6, 2025 at 4:04 pm

       The ads are a convenient bathroom break for an old person!

       The ads are totally irrelevant to me which is concerning since they have my years long shopping history. I do buy gifts for granddaughters, teenaged girls! Otherwise I am retired male, mid 70’s.

       So much for Amazon leveraging AWS/AI.

       The content on prime video is not “good” and I spend more time streaming Tubi and Pluto….

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       1. neutrino23 October 6, 2025 at 9:25 pm

          Yeah, Pluto and Tubi are pretty good. Tubi in particular doesn’t have too many ads. They have quite a lot of movies.

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    2. Mikel October 6, 2025 at 6:43 pm

       Their sites have always had the look of a cluttered bookstore.

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30. ДжММ October 6, 2025 at 3:10 pm

    The one about Lithuania:

    Someone seems to have gotten bad information. We live less than a half hour drive (traffic permitting) from Rukla. Not only have we heard nothing whatsoever about a drone hitting a building there or in environs on or around the very-specific date of 29 sept 2025. There appears to not be a single lithuanian-language article, post, twit, or otherwise comment mentioning such incident. Kind of weird, if our US-owned rulers are trying to push a story that we “were attacked by Russia”.

    The only geran drone at Rukla story from all of 2025 is regarding the one that supposedly overflew Vilnius back this summer before ‘disappearing’. After much well-deserved mocking for their super-effective display of competence in airspace security, in the later part of the summer, our intrepid local and allied forces “found” the alleged drone (so the story goes) having crashed in the woods on or near the grounds of the Rukla NATO facility. Wrong timing, and even still – no explosion, no building.

    Given the volume of actual war propaganda and lies being shoveled… it is more than a bit surprising and counterproductive to be highligting fabricated examples…

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31. Jason Boxman October 6, 2025 at 7:26 pm

    Exclusive: Classified Justice Department opinion authorizes strikes on secret list of cartels, sources say

    The Trump administration has produced a classified legal opinion that justifies lethal strikes against a secret and expansive list of cartels and suspected drug traffickers, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

    The opinion, which was produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel and has not been previously reported, argues that the president is allowed to authorize deadly force against a broad range of cartels because they pose an imminent threat to Americans. The list of cartels goes beyond those the administration has publicly designated as terrorist organizations, the people familiar with the opinion said.

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32. Ben Panga October 6, 2025 at 8:02 pm

    Jane Goodall said she would launch Trump and Musk on one-way trip into space (Guardian)

    It is not the first time that Goodall, a champion of environmental advocacy, has been critical of Trump in particular.

    In a 2022 interview with MSNBC she said he exhibited “the same sort of behavior as a male chimpanzee will show when he’s competing for dominance with another. They’re upright, they swagger, they project themselves as really more large and aggressive than they may actually be in order to intimidate their rivals…”

    ….Goodall, in a post-interview address to camera, ended with a message of encouragement for those fighting against political oppression and the climate emergency.

    “Even today, when the planet is dark, there still is hope. Don’t lose hope. If you lose hope, you become apathetic and do nothing,” she said.

    “And if you want to save what is still beautiful in this world – if you want to save the planet for the future generations, your grandchildren, their grandchildren – then think about the actions you take each day. Because, multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change.”
    

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33. Ben Panga October 6, 2025 at 8:26 pm

    New Syrian parliament ‘overwhlemingly Sunni, male’ following controlled vote (The Cradle)

    The 119 lawmakers were elected through a vote in which 6,000 members of regional electoral colleges chosen by Sharaa were allowed to participate.

    Syria’s minorities were further excluded following the decision by Syrian authorities not to hold elections in the Druze-controlled governorate of Suwayda and Kurdish-controlled governorates of Raqqa and Hasakah, citing “security concerns.”

    Sharaa, the former Al-Qaeda and Islamic State in Iraq commander, will also appoint the final 70 lawmakers to complete the 210-member legislative body, ensuring Syrians have no voice in the outcome.

    Compare with the Guardian’s much sunnier reporting:

    On election day, Daaboul said: “This is the first time I’ve ever voted in my life. I’m happy, and I don’t mind standing in line for a long time.”

    Lara Eezouki, a member of the national elections committee in Damascus, noted that the new assembly includes all sects and groups and said it was “the first time in Syria’s history that the ballot box truly rules – when the results are not prearranged”.

    Ibrahim Halabi, a former soldier under Assad’s rule who defected after mass anti-government protests were met by a brutal crackdown and ensuing civil war in 2011, said: “This is the first time in our lives we’ve participated in a democratic electoral process without outside pressure.”
    

    The Guardian was one of the main amplifiers of “moderate rebels” and other lies during the long Western/HTS campaign to overthrow Assad.

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34. Wukchumni October 6, 2025 at 8:56 pm

    (dedicated to the other Barry White)

    … Oh, baby, oh, Bari baby
    (Keep on)
    My baby, keep on doing it
    Right on, uh uh uh
    Right on doing it
    You got it together (Baby, keep on)

    … Oh, you got it together, baby
    (Right on, keep on doin’ it)
    Gotta get it baby, oh gotta get it
    (My my baby, keep on)
    I swear you got it together, baby
    (Keep on, keep on)

    … Whatever, whatever
    Girl, Zionists do it
    Forever and ever, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
    More chosen that others
    I’ll see you through

    … I’ve got to keep you pleased in every way I can
    Gonna give you all of CBS as much as you can stand
    Make offer to you right now, that’s all I wanna do
    I know you need it, girl and you know I need it too

    … ‘Cause I found what the world is searching for
    Here, right here, my dear, I don’t have to look no more
    And oh, my babe, I hoped and I prayed
    For someone just like you to make me feel the way you do

    … Never, never gonna give you up, they’re never, ever gonna stop
    Not the way they feel about you, girl, they just can’t live without you
    You’re never gonna quit ’cause quittin’ just ain’t your schtick
    You’re gonna stay right here and do all the things they want them to

    … Whatever you want, girl, you got it
    And whatever you need
    I don’t want to see you without it

    … You’ve given me much more than words could ever say
    And oh, my dear, you’ll be right here until my dyin’ day
    I don’t know just how to say all the things I feel
    I just know that they love you so and it give Zionists such a thrill

    … ‘Cause I found what this world is searching for
    Here, right here, my dear, I dont have to look no more
    And all of my days, I hoped and I prayed
    For someone just like you to make me feel the way you do

    … Oh, I’m never gonna give you up, I’m never, ever gonna stop
    All the things I feel about you, girl, I just can’t live without you
    I’m never, ever gonna quit

    Never Never Gonna Give Ya Up, by Barry White

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpbhSlce_ek&list=RDQpbhSlce_ek

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35. Wukchumni October 6, 2025 at 9:39 pm

    Endured the opener of the season for Saturday Night Live, and since when did funny become so ever elusive?

    Maybe time to put it out to pasture…

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