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Links 11/15/2025

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Seal hunted by killer whales escapes by jumping onto photographer’s boat Associated Press (Dr. Kevin)

German scientists discover that rats hunt bats in the dark Not the Bee (Li)

The Best and Worst Hit Songs of the 1960s Ted Golia. This list is way too skewed to the early 1960s. And even for the earlier 60s, what about Downtown? For the later 60s, how about icons like Age of Aquarius? Bridge Over Troubled Waters? Proud Mary? American Woman? Eli’s Coming?

Everyone worries about kids not reading – but this is worse Aftonbladet via machine translation (Micael T). Yours truly vehemently disagrees. I have always had horrible manual dexterity, dreadful penmanship despite some effort, and despised art class. I did have a go at a couple of musical instruments, which was again a bust due to said terrible manual dexterity. Having said that, most kids are at least somewhat adept, so neglecting skills that require use of hands is a bad idea for them.

Scientists tie lupus to a virus nearly all of us carry MedicalXpress (fk)

Gene Therapy Gets FDA’s Strongest Warning After Fatal Liver Injuries MedPage

The Monks in the Casino: A brief theory of young men, “the loneliness crisis,” and life in the 21st century Derek Thompson (Micael T)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

A Surprise Flu Variant Threw Off the Vaccine. Get Ready for a Brutal Winter Gizmodo (Paul R). Sigh. Flu vaccine not that effective to begin with.

Climate/Environment

Umeå residents receive birch seedlings from the municipality Extrakt via machine translation (Micael T)

The Arctic On Fire High North News

Tehran Enters Its 200th Day Without Rain, Setting an Unprecedented Record in the Past 60 Years Rokna

Severe Water Shortage Forces Thousands to Leave Homes in Western Afghanistan Kabul Now

Yellow fever and dengue cases surge in South America as climate crisis fuels health issues Guardian

China?

China’s economy jolted by weakest factory output, retail sales growth in over a year Reuters

China’s Economy Falters With Growth Hurt by Investment Slump Bloomberg

China Property Slump to Drag on 2026 Growth, Citi Says Caixin

Silicon Oasis: How Abu Dhabi Plays Both Sides of US-China China Talk

China Buys More Brazil Soybeans as US Purchases Stall Farm Policy News (resilc)

South of the Border

Trump says he made up his mind on Venezuela action Anadolu Agency. Moar gaslighting.

The U.S. Is Terrorizing Its Neighborhood Daniel Larison

Florida Man Occupied Government vs Venezuela Brad Pearce

European Disunion

Europe’s carmakers face ‘devastating’ chip crisis as Nexperia supply crunch continues Financial Times

EU conservatives vote with far right to approve cuts to green rules Politico

Germany agrees new military service plan to boost troop numbers BBC

We have had five years of nonstop political panic in Germany – over Covid, Russia and now Alternative für Deutschland. What will we panic over next? eugyppius (Micael T). IMHO. fatigue will eventually set in.

French National Assembly overwhelmingly votes to suspend controversial pension reform France24

Rain of money on independent school owners Klagget via machine translation (Micael T)

Old Blighty

I warned you Starmer would implode in office Owen Jones (Colonel Smithers)

Labour infighting puts chancellor’s budget plan to reassure bond markets at risk Guardian

UK Tech Secretary Urges Ofcom to Fast-Track Censorship Law Enforcement Reclaim the Net

Israel v. The Resistance

Tents in Gaza Collapse From Rain as Palestinians Struggle With Massive Flooding DropSite

Red Sea Crisis Looms as Israel–Houthi Clash Nears Horizon Geopolitics

This is Why Mark Levin Will Not Debate Tucker Carlson YouTube. In case you missed the clips of Mark Levin utterly losing his mind.

The Current Anti-Zionist Push in the US has all the Makings of a Second American Revolution Alon Mizrahi. Too hopeful but the row has become gratifyingly heated.

New Not-So-Cold War

Explosions rock Kyiv as mayor reports ‘massive’ Russian strikes across the capital France24

Chorus of ‘Corruption’ as Movement to Oust Zelensky Picks Up Steam Simplicius. Mecouris has deemed Zelensky’s position to be pretty secure due to his elimination of internal threats.

Ukraine scrambles to limit damage from blockbuster corruption scandal Politico

Nicolai Petro: Ukraine Endgame & Fragmentation of Europe Glenn Diesen, YouTube

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Putin’s Calculus: Why Russia Might Welcome a Long War YouTube. As we have been saying…

It Ain’t Money Laundering, It is Theft Larry Johnson

“Servant of the People”? More like serving his besties Tarik Cyril Amar

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

CEO of Palantir Says He Spends a Large Amount of Time Talking to Nazis Futurism

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Politics of Humiliation: Reading Robert Kagan in the midst of America’s nightmare The Baffler (Anthony L)

Troops left unfit for deployment after testing Ajax vehicles The Times

The Final Betrayal: How Technocracy Destroyed America Patrick Woo (Micael T)

Trump 2.0

The I.R.S. Tried to Stop This Tax Dodge. Scott Bessent Used It Anyway. New York Times (resilc)

* * *

Trump DRAGGED By HIS OWN BASE For DISASTROUS Fox News Interview Due Dissidence. Li: “Friendly interview in which Trump is out of it on colleges and consumer prices.”

Trump Is Falling Into the Same Trap That Ensnared Biden The Bulwark

* * *

Special prosecutor assigned to Trump 2020 Georgia election case with uncertain future The Hill

Kash Patel Waived Polygraph Screening for Dan Bongino, Senior Staff ProPublica (Robin K)

Bechtel Chief Says U.S. Must Subsidize Trump’s Nuclear Revival OilPrice (resilc)

Trump ends support for Marjorie Taylor Greene amid growing Epstein feud Guardian (Kevin W). BWAHAHA.

If Democrats regain the White House, Trump’s ballroom could be an early casualty NBC (resilc)

Immigration

Firm Tied to Kristi Noem Secretly Got Money From $220 Million DHS Ad Contracts ProPublica

Native American nearly deported in Iowa Polk County Jail issues ICE detainer by mistake Cedar Rapids Gazette (Robin K)

Tariffs

Fact Sheet: Following Trade Deal Announcements, President Donald J. Trump Modifies the Scope of the Reciprocal Tariffs with Respect to Certain Agricultural Products White House

Trump’s tariffs: Tracking the status of international trade action Supply Chain Drive (resilc)

Shutdown

Another shutdown in January? Some lawmakers are already bracing for it The Hill

Congressional hemp restrictions threaten $28 billion industry, sending companies scrambling CNBC

Did new hemp regulations ban THC drinks and products? What to know about provision in shutdown bill USA Today

MAHA

ByHeart’s ‘bizarre’ response to infant botulism outbreak worries food safety experts STAT. A venture funded MAHA darling denies facts. KLG adds:

Jeebus. People do not understand that the infectious dose of Clostridium botulinum spores can be in the single digits.  Thus, it doesn’t take many spores to cause disease, especially in a baby.  And the spores are virtually impossible to kill.  Same with anthrax, which is why both organisms are on the select list of potential bio-weapons.

From the link:

Infectious dose

The minimum infective dose of C. botulinum spores for human infants is unknown, but it may be as low as 10-100 spores based on estimates from exposure to spore-containing honey Footnote 19

Democrat Death Wish

Democrats Need a Wartime Consigliere. Hakeem Jeffries Isn’t One. New York Times (resilc)

Potemkin Revolution Mike Flugennock (resilc)

Mamdani

Disciplinary case against NYPD officer sets up potential conflict for Tisch and Mamdani Gothamist

>L’affaire Epstein

Pam Bondi puts weight of SDNY behind Epstein investigation of Democrats The Hill

Woke Watch

The prophet of gender madness: Dr. Paul McHugh returns from the cold Unherd

Texas A&M professors now need approval for race, gender topics Cedar Rapids Gazette (Robin K)

Economy

How markets could topple the global economy Economist

Foreclosures surge 20% as Americans struggle to pay mortgages — and fears of 2008-style crash soar Daily Mail (resilc)

Record number of subprime borrowers miss car loan payments in October, data shows Reuters

We Didn’t Kill American Manufacturing—We Let It Die America’s Undoing (resilc)

Canadian Travel to the U.S. Declines for 10th Straight Month New York Times (resilc)

AI

Silicon Valley data centers totalling nearly 100MW could ‘sit empty for years’ due to lack of power — huge installations are idle because Santa Clara can’t cope with surging electricity demands Tom’s Hardware (resilc)

The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived Wired (resilc)

Nvidia CEO Praises Trump Energy Chief — a Climate Denier — and his ‘Passion’ for Science DeSmog Blog

The vampires feed on us when we’re alone Yasha Levine

AI Companies Are Encouraging Users To Believe Chatbots Are People, And It’s Insanely Creepy Caitlin Johnstone (Kevin W)

Guillotine Watch

Waymo Was on a Roll in San Francisco. Then One of Its Driverless Cars Killed a Cat New York Times

resilc: “Too funny, Clinton one of the main creators of Trump. He should be Burr and challenge her to a duel”

Class Warfare

Ford CEO says he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries from the shortage of manually skilled workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’ Fortune (resilc)

Customers are the best check against dynamic pricing in restaurants Washington Post (Dr. Kevin). Sigh. This really misses the point. I don’t want to conceive of dining out as an adversarial relationship.

The D.N.C. Ordered Workers Back to the Office. Its Union Isn’t Pleased. New York Times (Li)

Eco-Marxism and Prometheus Unbound Monthly Review (Robin K)

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus:

And a second bonus:

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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155 comments

    1. JohnA

      Off parts of Scotland, seals hide among mussel farming frames to avoid predators. Unfortunately for them, many such predators have since become very patient in waiting for the seal to finally make a break for it.

      Reply ↓
  3. voislav

    Ford CEO complaining is quite rich. You, your predecessors, and your colleagues at other Big 3 destroyed skilled labour you had, cut back training programs and refused to hire and train up young people. Oh no, it’s the consequences of your own policies coming back to bite you in the ass.

    It’s amusing how pervasive this mindset is in the US corporate leadership. Every board meeting my company leadership complains about scientist salaries and bonuses. If our lead scientist is hit by a bus the company is done and you complain you have to pay the guy? But they have no problem hiring another manager to a point where commercial side has management to worker ratio of 1 to 1.

    I kind of laughed when I heard someone say that Chinese industry is run by engineers and US industry is run by accountants. Not far from the truth though.

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    1. The Rev Kev

      It goes deeper than that. I have heard that the Chinese National People’s Congress is full of people that were engineers whereas the US Congress is full of people that were lawyers. Two different mindsets at work and I wonder how true it is of most western Parliaments. In passing, here in Oz a Prime Minister was criticizing the front bench of the opposition and pointed out that every single one of them had gone to private schools and none to public schools.

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      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        We’ve had good lawyers before. The primary difference if we go that route is via candidate and courtier recruitment.

        The Chinese Communist Party wasn’t where the Chinese scions of the wealthy and powerful and their courtier class went starting in the 90’s. Believers were left behind in the party, but they wield real power. In the US, one of the Shaheen spawns is running for Congress because her mommy was a senator. In China, the spawn would have been dispatched to boarding school in the US, college in the US, and then married and stayed in the US, not building relationships within the power structure.

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    2. eg

      Yup. Start training your own workforce and pay and treat it well enough that it doesn’t leave.

      This isn’t rocket surgery, galaxy brains …

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    3. Louis Fyne

      >>>>Ford + 6-figure empty jobs

      Farley is either: lying by omission and/or an ignorant incompetent r___tard (judging by his “China car shock” both are prob. true).

      Dealership car mechanics are case study #838 in how incentives drive outcome.

      Farley doesn’t mentiin that apprentices have to buy the own **expensive** tools, are at the mercy of the “flat-rate” system, have no minimum hours work guarantee, senior mechanics have zero incentive to apprentice colleagues, and OEMs actively punish dealers who do too much warranty work (as they suspect fraud versus the Occam’s Razor oe they have more satisfied clients and more competent staff).

      then throw in the OEMs, like Ford, really-really hate paying warranty claims to dealers, which of course trickles down to when you have a new car and the dealer, inexplicably to you, stonewalls a legitimate complaint

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    4. TomDority

      “He noted, for example, learning to take a diesel engine out of a Ford Super Duty truck takes at least five years.”
      What BS..five years – maybe he ought to think about how they put it in in the first place. Sounds like the right to repair thing to capture in-house over priced repair gouging.
      Five years to learn how to remove a diesel engine – if true…it is the biggest reason not to buy a Ford…real competent dude that CEO coming out and giving reasons to steer clear of a Ford …astonishing coming from the guy running the place

      Reply ↓
      1. ambrit

        From my experience, unless the chassis is built directly onto the engine, that motor should come out in under a day. Learning how takes a few years of experience with general auto repair and a few times ‘helping’ someone with the proper experience do it. Perhaps the Ford Panjandrum was adding in the general skills training needed first before tackling something that ‘serious.’ Still, I must agree, five years is a bit much. (Are cars that much more complicated than they were fifty years ago?)
        Stay safe.

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        1. juno mas

          Yes. My 30 y.o. classic car is reparable, but it does require the usual techno-diagnostic tools to assess electronics (it has a computer controlled engine). So it requires the discipline to ID (mark) all connectors so it gets back together properly. The late model cars all have more electronic sensors and require special techno-diagnostics.

          The removal of an engine in a modern vehicle is complicated by the fact that the engine components are assembled in the open and then placed in the car before other external items on the body. This complicates removing the engine after the car is finished. (The case when the wrenching mechanics have to work on the vehicle.)

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          1. skippy

            Hence why I am hesitant to move on from my 2006 Toyota diesel Hilux trade ute, even if a nice pre 2000s VW Diesel van would be more functional. Got it as an ex fleet with about 340Klm on the clock and pushing 400Klm now. Yet all I have replaced since 2017 is front brake pads, Alt, battery, and do my own mech/services. 15 min for the alt replacement in the driveway. I have driven it for 2 yrs with a timing belt warning light, because its just a OEM part balance sheet buffer.

            So glad I had the years on my old Iowan grandfathers farm and learned stuff/resilience early on – massive knowledge for one person on that level that transfers across time. They knew the game and devised work arounds which in turn became a battle with OEM. How many know back in the old days farmers would use kerosene as a transmission et al fluid for vehicles due to cold vs oils because of viscosity.

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    5. Wukchumni

      There’s a few mechanics with decades of experience fixing cars online, that are quite good in what they do, and one of them flat out says ‘DO NOT buy any Ford vehicle with an Eco-Boost engine’.

      Maybe the problem isn’t so much from a lack of mechanics?

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      1. chris

        It really depends. The eco boost stuff that Ford put out several years ago (2015ish) was really good. The 2.7L ecoboost with the turbos is a favorite engine for a lot of mechanics I know. The features and design make it incredibly reliable and durable with good output at high and low ends. They basically tried to make a compact V8 that was more like a diesel engine, and then make if so it could be mass produced as the baseline engine for many different models. Why they abandoned that approach I can’t say.

        I think we lost the spark that people had for working on cars sometime in the 90s. HOAs make it illegal for owners to work on their cars in most places. Complex systems and warranties make it unwise to open up something you can’t put back together. Everyone trying to make cars like iPhones destroyed the awareness needed to ask questions and fix things. It probably does take 5 years to train a person from zero skill to being able to safely remove a diesel engine without damaging all the associated systems connected to the engine in a modern vehicle. But then I would suggest Ford has a stake in making more people interested in developing those skills at a younger age. Most tech programs at high-schools would love the support from an OEM.

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        1. rowlf

          When I was going to a community college in southeast Michigan three decades ago the school got a lot of support from Ford, Generous Motors and Toyota for their trade classes. Many of my classmates that worked for the auto companies had their tuition paid by their employers.

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        2. rowlf

          One problem with modern equipment is the manufacturers do not like to provide software IP, so while mechanics/technicians use schematics and wiring diagrams when troubleshooting, the operating logic is a black hole. Sometimes the manufacturer’s troubleshooting directions are insufficient. In the past it was easier for the mechanics/technicians to understand the systems they were working on using maintenance manual documentation.

          Perhaps a second problem is there is a split with mechanics/technicians on who wants to change parts/spin wrenches, and who wants to do electrical troubleshooting. I would put the split as 80/20.

          New technology in automobiles and aircraft is filtering out low skill workers.

          Clipped from my LinkedIn feed:

          As a veteran technician in the automotive industry, I’m seeing a serious lack of diagnostic ability at all levels of technology and at all levels of the industry. Technicians who work on older vehicles, like the truck on top aren’t making the transition to working on trucks like the one on the bottom effectively. The shortfall in knowledge is twofold, it’s the industry not offering adequate training, and the technicians not pushing themselves to stay current.

          I owned the truck on top for 13 years. It was simple and easy to work on, but when it had problems, it required proper diagnostic approaches to solve issues, especially with the HUEI injection system both mechanically and electronically. It was a good truck.

          I bought the 2020 F-150 Raptor bottom four months ago and it’s been in the dealer service Bay for 22 days While the tech struggled to properly diagnose simple problems. I think it’s a great truck, but I don’t know if I will trust the dealer to perform any additional repairs, even under warranty.

          As an instructor in the automotive industry for the past 8 1/2 years, I find that this is the greatest challenge of my current role. The 30 years prior, I worked throughout the industry on everything from basic transportation, to race cars, to heavy equipment. There were many times that it took being ferocious and not willing to give up to ultimately solve problems that I faced. Proper diagnostic approaches are the key to solving those problems, and this seems to be lacking currently in the automotive industry.

          I genuinely believe technicians are too reliant upon codes and lack fundamental knowledge of systems. Without a solid understanding of system operation, the diagnostic strategies provided by the manufacturers are of limited use to a technician. In addition to that, a lack of advanced diagnostic techniques like training on voltage drop testing becomes very apparent and results in unnecessary module, replacements, and even overlays and harness replacements

          Beyond that a lack of knowledge of diagnostic specialty tools, like chassis ears, and oscilloscopes puts technicians at a disadvantage for being able to diagnose noises, vibrations, and electrical systems alike. Having the right tools to do the job and knowing how to use them, makes the job faster and more efficient.

          The technician shortage, the industry faces right now is leading independent shops and dealerships alike to put untrained or undertrained technicians to work fixing cars they don’t understand. This is delaying repairs and increasing costs for the consumer and the industry. Training is essential and needs to be happening at a high level and on a regular basis.

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    6. Glen

      At least from all I have been reading and hearing on YT, this shortage may have more to do with how dealership mechanics are paid by the job, or what’s called flat rate:

      Flat Rate Mechanic Salary in the United States
      https://www.salary.com/research/salary/hiring/flat-rate-mechanic-salary

      Here’s a mechanic getting into the details on it:

      How Dealerships Create Bad Mechanics – The Flat Rate Problem
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg6W1mtL4XQ

      But I’ve certainly seen the management issues you describe where I work too. I dare say that there seems to be some issues with the American management style which seems too pointed towards maximizing their pay and “benefits” at the expense of all else (often disguised as “shareholder value). And the auto mechanic problem looks like another management created system that’s wrecking a profession to the point where skilled mechanics just find other jobs.

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      2. rowlf

        One of my sons took auto shop classes in high school and worked after school as a mechanic’s helper for an independent auto repair shop that had a good owner/boss*. The afternoon he got his high school diploma he hired on at a local dealership as a lube tech. He had that position for about four hours, then was asked to repair an electrical problem on a car and brought out a multimeter and a schematic. He got moved up to mechanic. He really liked the work and most of the coworkers.

        After several months he left that shop to go to aircraft mechanic school. The family that owned the dealership was toxic and anyone with any talent left due to bad management.

        *The owner/boss of the shop sold me an engine and stand that I gave to my son as a birthday present when he was in middle school. My son took it apart and put it together several times. I basically wanted him to make all of his mistakes before he went to work somewhere, such as finding out that a Honda Odyssey flex plate will not bolt up to an Accord torque converter.

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  4. Victor Sciamarelli

    “Trump says he made up his mind on Venezuela action.” Like Saddam Hussein and WMD, and who was supposedly involved in 9/11, I see no reason to believe Trump is concerned about drugs entering the US or eliminating narco-terrorists from our hemisphere.
    I do know that China is a peer competitor and the US wants to contain China because China has a significant and increasing presence in South America. Together with Brazil, which is the world’s 6th largest economy and the largest in SA, Chile and Peru also claim China as their largest trading partner. Furthermore, despite sanctions China is the largest buyer of Venezuela’s oil.

    Whereas Biden viewed China as a “strategic competitor” in SA, Trump, imo, even in his first term, wants US policy to be more aggressive toward the region beginning with Venezuela, Columbia, and Mexico with designs on removing Chinese influence from the hemisphere. With or without an invasion, Trump will fail and likely push nations in the region even more toward China, and further isolate the US.

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  6. raspberry jam

    The Current Anti-Zionist Push in the US has all the Makings of a Second American Revolution Alon Mizrahi.

    I don’t think Americans would revolt over Epstein or Israel. I think they would after a few years of militarized ICE occupations of blue cities, though. I posted on yesterday’s links about watching the film Civil War recently and it was released last year (so before the militarization of ICE) but it managed to accurately capture the tense “armed military vs the ‘wrong’ americans” dynamic that is happening in the cities with strong ICE presence. This is directly affecting people in the country in a tangible way, unlike the Epstein/Israel/Gaza stuff, which is more abstract and removed. It’s socially acceptable to hate Israel for what they’ve done to Gaza and to discuss that openly (I eavesdropped on a group of people in a restaurant at a table next to me in San Francisco last week talking about how they left a ‘super-Zionist wine bar’, not sure what exactly that means but the sentiment was completely unchallenged by those discussing it), but it kind of stops there. Non-uniformed militarized masked men kidnapping parents in front of their children though: there are tons of videos from Chicago and LA of normal middle class people actively grouping up on and screaming and fighting back to drop the kidnappings. That, to me, is a way more serious and significant indicator of major incoming pre-revolutionary activity than any amount of intra-MAGA split over Zionist support.

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    1. The Rev Kev

      Can you imagine the reaction if it turned out that ICE was using Israeli doctrine and tactics in how they act and behave on American streets? Then Zionism would come right back into the picture.

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      1. raspberry jam

        I wouldn’t be surprised if ICE is getting crowd control and close contact handling training from Israel (after all, many current US police departments already are) but there is no way in hell the militarized immigration enforcement team is going to actually contract Zionists or Israelis to do the deeds in the US. If either the US or Israel are stupid enough to do so they can kiss that 20 year defense pact goodbye the first time a Hebrew accented guy is recorded doing some shitty krav maga shoulder dislocation move on a little old Salvi lady. So it will remain an issue that is seen as at Trump’s (or the federal government’s) behest instead of a purely Zionist-related issue.

        Have you seen the videos of the reactions to the ICE raids in Chicago?! Sorry but there is zero comparison to the reactions to Israel/Gaza: the former is direct, personal, you have middle aged dads in bathrobes screaming en masse with soccer moms (NB not Hispanic) at ICE gangs over strangers they don’t even know, they’re passionately furious and they’re fighting back against something they perceive as a direct and immediate threat. The latter is protest activity, it’s non-personal, it’s non-confrontational, it’s a mass of people saying they don’t agree and they’re exercising their rights to say so.

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      2. Dr. John Carpenter

        Are you suggesting they aren’t? Given Israel’s close relationship with US cops, I’d assume there’s some trickle down, it just hasn’t been outed yet.

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        1. The Rev Kev

          I know that US cops are regularly sent to Israel for “training” but have no idea if any ICE agents or Border Patrol people have also gone there as well. But that whole masked men in masks doing snatch and grab of people right off the streets does sound like what the Israelis would do with Palestinians.

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          1. raspberry jam

            ICE in Chicago

            vs

            IDF in Tulkarem

            ICE may be getting advice/training from the Zionists but they absolutely do not have the same degree of control over the environment and this is extremely evident in how their mass arrests unfold. Israel doesn’t need to rendition people because the military occupation is already complete. ICE does because the occupation is incomplete and being resisted. This is why I am pretty adamant that only one of these issues is existential/pre-revolutionary for the US.

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    2. Carolinian

      How many divisions does the Israeli Lobby have? If we have a Civil War again it’s not going to be over Israel which most Americans barely know anything about.

      Civil War is a good movie and highly recommended but is just that–a movie–and not IMO in any way a realistic prediction of our future.

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      1. Wukchumni

        I’m in agreement, Civil War is quite timely, and remember that life tends to imitate art in these not so united states.

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      3. Balan Aroxdale

        How many divisions does the Israeli Lobby have?

        The IDF, the whole of Nato, half the Arab states and probably several 3rd world nations. That’s before all the domestic intelligence and security services and all the way down to the likes of ICE, never mind how many police units are trained in Israel.
        How many divisions do the “America Firsters” have?

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    3. Michael Fiorillo

      Intra-elite conflict is a pre-requisite for revolution, along with mobilization of those outside the walls of power. The breakdown of elected consensus over Zionism/Palestine may qualify; we’ll have to wait and see.

      Reply ↓
    4. Balan Aroxdale

      Revolutions require deep intellectual and cultural reformations which are simply not present in the general American population. If anything the revolution within America over the last 20-30 years has been towards zionism and its mores, and away from the post-war consensus and older American ideas, especially isolationism and a constitutional order. 9/11, the Patriot Act, endless wars, mass surveillance, clashes of civilizations, identity politics and re-racialization. A large fraction of the population have no memory of the cultural mores to which those opposing the overreaches of zionism are appealing. There is human empathy towards the Palestinians, but very little organized opposition to censorship or crackdowns or suspensions of basic rights, because these things were normalized many years ago.

      Reply ↓
  7. eg

    “Stop scaremongering over dynamic pricing in restaurants”

    I don’t know who or what the Manhattan Institute is, but anyone foolish enough to take this author at face value needs desperately to read Shiller and Akerloff’s Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception stat.

    https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691168319/phishing-for-phools?srsltid=AfmBOoo09thI4hei9FgqXIgRsOMuwlipuNXFe6pAw3Q50QJtfUUsaJz7

    Also, looks to me that there’s an open “bold” code somewhere above …

    Reply ↓
      1. eg

        Thank you — I will add them to the same bucket into which I have dumped the Fraser Institute and the Montreal Economic Institute, and Cato. Adjacent thereto, if not as openly vicious, is the CD Howe Institute.

        Vile bodies, all.

        Reply ↓
  8. The Rev Kev

    “Bondi puts weight of SDNY behind Epstein investigation of Democrats”

    I think that Trump has put the Democrats in check here. But there may be an implied deal. Both the Republicans and the Democrats don’t really want to pursue the Epstein files as that leads to too many of their donors. In fact, it is worse for the Democrats as you have an ex-Democrat President who went to Epstein’s island so many times it was like he had a season pass. The sight of him in a court of law having to give testimony is one that they want to avoid. So my guess is that by the New Year, both sides would have dropped the whole thing to concentrate on the midterms instead.

    Reply ↓
    1. Carolinian

      Anyone who thinks Epstein really killed himself raise their hand. Those looking to bury this are playing hardball.

      Reply ↓
      1. amfortas

        idk…i came out here to the bar at 4amlima and turned on the laptop, and twitx feed was overflowing with crazy shit about trump blowing bill clinton.
        i think it can still get a whole lot weirder.

        and i’m not so sure that those hardball players are as competent and all powerful as they used to be

        Reply ↓
      2. John Wright

        Perhaps the skepticism over Epstein’s “official” cause of death is wide in the USA, to judge from a lost golf ball that a friend found on a Northern California course.

        It was embossed “Epstein did not commit suicide”.

        If a golfer troubled to place this statement on his golf ball, maybe many other many people in the USA continue to see the convenient Epstein death as “suspicious”.

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    4. Jonhoops

      While Clinton flew on the Lolita Express multiple times, the logs showed he never visited the island. Maxwell denied that he’d been to the island.

      Reply ↓
      1. ambrit

        Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.
        If Bill can’t come to the Island, then the Island will come to Bill. There is also the New Mexico Epstein Ranch. Bill and Hillary visited there.

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      3. The Rev Kev

        Not true. Several times he ditched his Secret Service detail when they weren’t looking so that he could be driven out to the awaiting Lolita Express on the runway. Even Trump says he went to Epstein’s Island 28 times.

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  9. Wukchumni

    The Best and Worst Hit Songs of the 1960s Ted Golia.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    I was sired into the Pat Boone era at the time of my coming out party, which bears no resemblance to the summer of ’69, and Woodstock in particular, bookends of a decade if you will.

    The idea that there was a fair amount of dreck came with the territory but it meant people were trying, and for yours truly the 60’s seem awfully similar to the impressionist scene in France a century earlier. Artists trying to outdo one another (the Beatles in particular- what an array of side musicians they utilized after the touring years were over-not to mention all of the quirky ways to record a song) and so many instruments were used, many incorporating brass-the forgotten instrument nowadays (…where have you gone Doc Severinsen?) and even the musically untalented could look somewhat competent with a tambourine shaking in their hand.

    The 60’s was also about subterfuge, only around the turn of the century did Paul cop to the real meaning of this ditty, which seems like such an innocent love song, and it twas-in regards to marijuana

    Got to get you into my life

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r95-7zfgtLw&list=RDr95-7zfgtLw

    Reply ↓
    1. Bugs

      Brass was in pop music until the 80s – Haircut 100, Rip Rig & Panic, Sade et al. – but then something broke. I blame Grunge, Britpop and ubiquitous Pop/R&B for expelling the sass of the brass and replacing it with distortion, syncopated rap breaks and autotune. Though I’m a fan of today’s pop. At least most of it.

      Reply ↓
    2. Lefty Godot

      Ted Gioia (not Golia, as the link text had it) has very good taste in music, but I can’t see putting “You Keep Me Hanging On”, or any Supremes song really, over Aretha Franklin or Gladys Knight at their tops. Diana Ross is just not in the same class as a singer. I would even take the somewhat strange vocal timbre of the Shirelles in “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” or one of their other hits as a highlight (and since that song was the first real “girl group” number 1 hit, it deserves some extra credit). “Baby I Need Your Loving” by the Four Tops needs to be on his highlights list as well. It should also be mentioned that Frank Zappa inserted a good parody of the Supremes’ style of soul into one of his songs, “Call Any Vegetable” (I think).

      Reply ↓
      1. GF

        John Lennon documentary “One to One” is streaming now on HBO Max now. The concert in the film is the only lone concert performed by Lennon.

        Reply ↓
    4. ThirtyOne

      Don Joyce of Negativland

      1965

      Taking a lot of authentic top 40 radio DJ recordings, along with lots of soft drink spots done by pop bands of the day, all of which was recorded off broadcasts in 1965, I add some songs from 1965 that may or may not have been played on the radio, and you have a simulation of an impossible top 40 show from 1965. A pivotal year of psychic change ranging from Brill Building hits to the British invasion and the pre-grass Beatles, to Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival going way against the prevailing grain. And a relentless look at how most music was compromised by Coca Cola even then.

      https://archive.org/details/OTE_20030508_1965

      Reply ↓
  10. Carolinian

    Re Florida Man Occupied Government–definitely worth a read and claims the Miami Exile Lobby is only second to the Israeli Lobby in controlling our foreign policy. It seems we will know soon enough what Trump has “decided” although we already know that any Trump decision can turn on a dime. Meanwhile the question lingers: new Vietnam, Iraq or Bay of Pigs?

    Reply ↓
  11. .Tom

    > The Monks in the Casino: A brief theory of young men, “the loneliness crisis,” and life in the 21st century Derek Thompson

    Thompson begins by quoting from Daniel Kolitz’ recent essay in Harpers The Goon Squad: Loneliness, porn’s next frontier, and the dream of endless masturbation. If you haven’t already read that, don’t miss it. It’s very interesting and I think more perceptive that the usual hand-wringing.

    Reply ↓
    1. Wukchumni

      Roughly half of men between the ages of 18-49 have a sports betting account. In New Jersey, nearly one in five men aged 18-24 is on the spectrum of having a gambling problem, according to the author Jonathan Cohen.

      Looking back, when day-trading became a thing in stocks, was the beginning of the endgame of where we are at with gambling online.

      It isn’t as if Las Vegas is flourishing, what self respecting young monk wants to be seen with a bunch of ancient people who actually paid to go see Donnie & Marie or some legendary magician nobody has ever heard of?

      What if a bottle of booze was at the ready at any juncture for a John Barleycorn type?

      Thats what’s happening with the silent killer of addictions, gambling.

      Being in action was my downfall in the green felt jungle in Pavlovegas, but in my defense I had to drive 250 miles to torture myself in such a fashion.

      Reply ↓
    2. t

      Gooning is of the moment. I suppose you women are… cutting their own hair and referencing Brad Mondo in their videos? Book reviews? Unboxing and Temu hauls?

      Perhaps I should ask my lunch date.

      Reply ↓
    3. vao

      I read it; it is at the same time fairly insightful and utterly dispiriting. I found stories and descriptions of the “gooner” ways baffling and frankly incredible, while I can understand a few of the motivations leading to those practices.

      All in all, social, cultural, economic symptoms of deliquescence are piling up to such an extent that I doubt our societies can still be saved.

      Reply ↓
    4. Jeremy Grimm

      If so many young men are occupied with porn and/or gambling, what are the young women doing? What are they ‘into’?

      Reply ↓
      1. Paleobotanist

        working too much, trying to survive economically, judging from my students…Some of the young women have heavy family responsibilities which adds to their karoshi…

        Reply ↓
      2. Huey

        That’s a really good question. Some reasons were suggested above this comment but I don’t think those problems are exclusive to women.

        Reply ↓
  12. Wukchumni

    I did have a go at a couple of musical instruments, which was again a bust due to said terrible manual dexterity.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I too found that my best musical talents lay in the treble, bass and volume controls on the stereo, and in the 70’s every kid in my school had to learn to play an instrument-and the instrument of terror for my family was a trumpet, I was that bad.

    Fast forward to 20 years later, I’ve always loved the piano-why not rent a piano and take lessons, yeah that’s the ticket!

    As usual it didn’t take, but turned out to make for the best party ever.

    The Fox was an interesting LA legend of sorts, that is if you like a grown man singing bawdy songs while playing the piano and drinking beers* in a heartbeat, including while standing on his head.

    He had a place called the Fox Inn, in Santa Monica and we’d gone and seen him a few times and what a hoot. A few years later he was doing his thing at a bar in the San Fernando Valley, and the idea hit us, why not rent the Fox for a night?

    My friend Lisa arranged it and for $400 we got 2 hours.

    I’d moved into a brand new rental townhouse a year earlier and we packed it to the gills with about 40 of us squished in, and what a performance that so rankled the neighbors, the next morning I was taking out one of many loads of trash, and a 9 year old girl from one of the neighbors asked ‘why were you so loud last night?’ which was of course her parents talking, tee hee.

    The Fox – Songs Banned in Boston (Bill “The Fox” Foster) (not even remotely safe for work)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgrx_GYDvnQ&list=RDjgrx_GYDvnQ

    Bill “The Fox” Foster Doo Dah Parade 1992

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbcrwykCHNQ

    * found out his dirty secret when I saw his wife pouring apple juice into beer steins in my kitchen

    Reply ↓
    1. t

      I have excellent dexterity and pretty good eyesight, especially in regard to color, and very very very good hearing. (Very good. Like my EMT always mentions it.)

      Can I do art or play music? No. No No No. The thinking part of it, the artistry if you will, is completely beyond me.

      Trying to learn is worthwhile and I am a big believer in building brain power by using the body and precision movements. But I could practice nine million hours and never play any instrument well enough not to be annoying.

      That said, if you want to improve your handwork, don’t practice on car repair and rewiring things in your house. That could be a disaster!

      Reply ↓
      1. Jeremy Grimm

        I have what I believe is ‘good’ dexterity, but I have some issues with dyslexia when I type or try to read music. It was what lead me to quite practicing cello [with cello the thumb positions hurt, and were difficult to hit tunefully and my bow to cello squealed no matter how I applied rosin or pressure to the bow] and later quit the piano. I also arrived at the conclusion that a machine could master nuances of technique I never could, no matter how much I practiced. That conclusion lead me to another conclusion I have yet to explore: the ‘Human’ essence of music lies in the ‘expression’ of the performance, its emotional impact, … its ‘feeling’ and expression of that feeling to other Humans. I saw my physical limitations as limitations to my ability to express the feeling in music — assuming I felt some sense of the universe of feelings the composer encapsulated in the composition. I fear AI might at some level out-perform humans in expressing these human feeling music can express.

        Reply ↓
    3. skylark

      The Fox reminds me of my hometown chanteuse, Rusty Warren, comedienne and lounge lizard, who sang such notable tunes as “Bounce Your Boobies” and “Get Your Knockers Up Girls”.

      Reply ↓
  13. The Rev Kev

    “It Ain’t Money Laundering, It is Theft”

    What you never really hear about is just how much money has gone into the black hole of the Ukraine. My own estimate is about half a trillion dollars but to be truthful, I think it is much much higher than that. So where did it all go? No doubt Zelensky and his gang have swiped tens of billions at least but the biggest cuts have gone to people and politicians in the Collective West. The result will be that when this war is over, there will be no actual investigations of where that money went just like happened for Afghanistan. It will be all shoved to the side and people that ask will be told to stop living in the past.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ignacio

      Demonstrating that throwing money at a problem is not enough. There must be something else. A Strategy? Not being blinded by pure hubris?

      Reply ↓
    2. Screwball

      If memory serves me correct, at one time congress wanted to do something to track all the money and others threw a hissy fit and it never happened best I can tell. Am I remembering wrong?

      You can’t steal or launder money if they keep track of it, so why wouldn’t they?

      OK, dumb question.

      Reply ↓
      1. The Rev Kev

        Not dumb at all and you are remembering correctly. When they first started throwing all that money and resources at Zelensky there was a vote so that it could all be audited. It went up for a vote in Congress but was defeated. That right there was an enormous red flag – that Congress did not want anything audited.

        Reply ↓
        1. Screwball

          Thanks, I thought so.

          That’s the kind of stuff that drives me nuts and turn it off. I feel guilty for doing so because I care. Why should I? This is a perfect example of what’s wrong and why it will never ever change.

          Reply ↓
  14. DJG, Reality Czar

    Best and Worst Hit Songs:

    Adding several charismatic hits to the list of the best:
    –Ain’t No Mountain High Enough, by Tammi Terrell and Marvin Gaye.
    –A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke. I can’t guarantee that it made the charts, but it sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.
    –Dr. Feelgood (Love Is a Serious Business), by Aretha Franklin. All you need to know.
    –It’s Gonna Take a Miracle, Deniece Williams
    –I’d Rather Go Blind, by the indispensable Etta James.

    And coming around the bend, the divine Laura Nyro…

    Bad songs of that era: Have I ever made public my doubts about Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé?

    Reply ↓
    2. Henry Moon Pie

      I would have included “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I’ve Got Love in my Tummy) among the worst as a representative of the crappiest of “Bubblegum Music.” As for the best, I love most of the songs on the list (Del Shannon and the Crystals are before my Top 40 Am radio listening days), but not to include any Hendrix (how about Hendrix covers Dylan in “All Along the Watchtower”?), Doors or Jefferson Airplane is inexplicable. And speaking of Dylan, just where is he on this list?

      If you want the best of 60s music, I’d recommend the performers at the ’64 Newport Folk Festival that included the best of folk, blues, gospel and bluegrass plus the ’67 Monterey Pop Festival.

      Reply ↓
          1. Jessica

            For a song to become truly reviled, we have to be subject to it over and over and not again over. That means that the worst songs are songs that somebody liked.
            I liked MacArthur Park, but this is not the first time I’ve heard someone say they hated it.
            I mean yeah, it made no sense, but so did a lot of other songs.
            Someone, I forget who, did a poll of best and worst 60s songs a few years ago and there were a few songs that made both lists.

            Reply ↓
            1. Yves Smith Post author

              I dunno. How about The Carpenters? Karen Captenter did have a lovely voice. One or two hearings of their songs might be OK. But more than a very few makes listeners well aware of their high treacle content. And they were regularly included in Muzak tracks, assuring overexposure.

              BTW some of the Japanese I knew really loved The Carpenters because the lyrics were so well enunciated.

              Reply ↓
    3. Ignacio

      I posted above The House of the Rising Sun.
      Oh, and yesterday I had an attack of A Whiter Shade of Pale by surprise!

      There are thousands of peachy themes there. It does not make sense to me to try to select the supposed best. Each one has its moment to attack by surprise.

      Reply ↓
    5. Dalepues

      When I saw this link I had just sat down at Mudbugs, corner of Dauphin Island Pkwy and Government street in Mobile, Al, and the song on the speaker was Shotgun, by Junior Walker and the Allstars, (1965) a great dance song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI7CtxlisCk), but they also knew how to write true romance lyrics, as with What Does It Take (To Win Your Love).

      Reply ↓
  15. Earl

    The posts on American manufacturing and Ford’s worker complaint are a matching pair. My view is that we are beyond recovery. To start we need to reform our politics with campaign finance reform. tax code reform and the will to tame the looting oligarchs as Putin did.

    I graduated from Detroit’s Cass Technical High School. It was founded in 1912. The school had rigorous academic instruction plus an industrial curriculum featuring instruction and hands on experience in focused programs in things like electrical and drafting as well as art/design and performing arts. As late as the early 60s there were offerings in items such as metallurgy.

    Reply ↓
    1. thistlebreath

      Then you may remember the stretch on Eight Mile from the East side to Woodward: wall to wall job machine shops doing sub work for the big three. I spent a quarter break at Wayne machining bell housings for Chrysler 440’s. Non union shop but good pay. Those places and days are gone.

      Michigan Tech in Houghton still has a robust metallurgy program. And bad sledding 3 months of the year.

      Reply ↓
  16. Donaldo

    Silicon Valley data centers totalling nearly 100MW could ‘sit empty for years’ due to lack of power — huge installations are idle because Santa Clara can’t cope with surging electricity demands Tom’s Hardware (resilc)

    Musk shoud go to Russia and ask to buy some of those Burevestnik/Poseidon engines.

    Reply ↓
  17. comrade

    Waymo Was on a Roll in San Francisco. Then One of Its Driverless Cars Killed a Cat New York Times

    So, it’s either cat-free or car-free.

    Reply ↓
  18. The Rev Kev

    “I warned you Starmer would implode in office’

    I don’t know if anybody believed how bad Starmer could turn out to be. His approval ratings must be in the single digits by now but his devoting his devotion to the Ukraine over that of what is happening in the UK is inexcusable. And yet there can be found anybody in the Labour party much better. The Tories have a pretty low bench too. I could see people choosing Reform in the next election on the basis that both the Tories and labour are now done but I could see Reform being just as big a disappointment with power as Trump has been in power this year.

    Reply ↓
    1. ambrit

      After Reform stumbles, I see Wales and Scotland going it alone. I don’t know about North Ireland. Does Ireland proper even want Belfast back?
      Stay safe.

      Reply ↓
    2. Ben Panga

      The only suprise to me with Starmer is incompetence. I believe I said in these pages he’d be phenomenally unpopular, but I didn’t realise he’d be so useless.

      Reform: they do not have the institutional skills of a Russell Vought or Stephen Miller, or any of the competent sociopaths under Trump2. They don’t have the Republican Party behind them. They are mostly a complete amateurish rabble and will be an embarrassing disaster.

      Fwiw, Farage used to often visit a pub I worked in and I had the “pleasure” of listening him speak to some adoring colleague more than once. I think he’s a moron. Good at stirring up shit, but incoherent intellectually. Vibes like a racist village councillor.

      The mainstream parties are dead-ends. There is no-one of stature. In fact, no-one not roundly detested. They are useless, policyless professional politicians disappearing up their own neoliberal arses. They are obsessed with the game of politics, but have no ability to govern or lead.

      Streeting is horrible, just horrible. In both parties each leader has been worse than the previous one dating back to John Smith.

      We will see the British tradition of PMicide accompanied by scurrying and plotting by narcissist idiots until Starmer is replaced by a “fresh face” with no new policies, and no clue how to get Britain out of its terminal death spiral.

      The Guardian is well-connected with Labour Party inside baseball stuff. Read this from today and tell me anything good will come of all this.

      Same car, new clown. I’d vote the lettuce over any of them.

      Reply ↓
      2. Anonymous 2

        Thank you.

        Your comments on Farage fit with those of Richard North who as UKIP Head of Research worked with him when he led that party. North found Farage completely uninterested in policy or detail. According to North, Farage’s main strength is his ability to identify people’s prejudices and play them back to them. His latest big policy announcement has been the intention to deport large numbers of asylum seekers.

        A few days back Farage gave a speech on economic matters. Tellingly, Reform spoke of Farage ‘performing’ the speech. Says it all really. It amazes me that it is rarely pointed out that Reform is not a political party as generally understood but is a company limited by guarantee, with only two guarantors, Farage and one other. I am surprised it is legal for a company to hold seats in Parliament. It really should not be.

        The UK is now utterly dysfunctional.

        The NBER have recently produced a paper (Bloom et al.) estimating the cost to the UK of Brexit. They argue this is now running at 6% to 8% of GDP. It is no wonder there is such pressure on UK Government finances, requiring either cuts to public services (already struggling badly) or widespread tax increases.

        Murdoch and Putin will be happy.

        Reply ↓
        1. bertl

          I’m speaking as a person who lived in France at the time of the referendum and voted Remain.

          I’m not amazingly impressed by the NBER paper because it considers only the effects of leaving the EU after protracted and corrosive efforts to maintain our relationship with the EU without actually being a member state, and equally protracted efforts to revisit the Referendum by significant grouping of MPs in all Parliamentary parties.

          If you remember, Jeremy Corbyn said that we should immediately notify the EU after the referendum results were published which would have focussed the attention of government, MPs and businesses on the reality of the UK’s changed position and made it clear that the UK needed to develop alternative trade relationships with the rest of the world.

          It was certainly clear to me at the time that Corbyn had judged our situation correctly, not least because our most significant trading partners within the EU would be under pressure from business interests to ensure that a rapid Brexit did not disturb their trading relationships with the UK overmuch. The delay in notifying the EU formally hardened the position of both the EU and the UK and gave businesses in the EU time to prepare for a punishment Brexit, in part to pressure the UK government and in part to ensure that Brexit did them least damage. The UK government, of course, took the long view and gave our businesses as little assistance as it could muster.

          Both of the UK’s Remainer dreams of a continuation of our relationship with the EU seemingly rendered the UK government nd businesses incapable of developing effective bilateral trading relationships with non-EU countries, including China, Russia, and other BRICS and non-BRICS countries.

          Again, if you remember, Farage’s point – shared with Corbyn – was that EU membership was holding Britain back from increasing economic growth by developing alternative and more fruitful economic (as opposed to financial) relationships enabling us to increase non-precarious employment with non-EU countries.

          The May government was caught up in relatively trivial obsessive issues over the fine details of the process, and then we had Boris Johnson as the posterboy prime minister symbolising British incompetence, tomfoolery and recklessness to every single person, at home or abroad, who took even the most marginal interest in the future of the UK economy.

          Neither Johnson’s successor, Sunak, the lettace woman nor Starmer possess the political skills, the vision, or, in the case of the latter two, the intellectual and managerial competence to give the country (and the world) any sense of the UK’s economic direction other than downwards, rather like the final scene of Thelma and Louise, except in the case of the UK’s general population, with unwilling passengers on the back seat.

          It is a question of utter political failure caused by the four least impressive parliaments in my lifetime, and I include the House of Lords, littered as it is with party hacks, and this is why “Brexit generated a large, broad and long-lasting increase in uncertainty” for the UK economy – and, I might add, the future of the political system that is driving the disabled, the unemployed and our ever increasing precariat into the abyss.

          Reply ↓
    3. eg

      Gary Stevenson called it before Labour’s election victory. Not terribly difficult, I guess, since endless neoliberalism has inevitably led to serial failure.

      Reply ↓
  19. AG

    re: BBC

    Racket News of course takes it up but it´s more than odd that BBC´s Gaza hate PR never bothered Racket. Well, the issue isn´t new.

    preview only:

    Transcript – America This Week, Nov 13, 2025: “Far Beyond Trump: The BBC’s Brutal Autopsy”
    The BBC was meant to be the model for the anti-disinformation era, but England has become the world leader in failed propaganda. Also, “The Lord of the Flies” continues
    Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn
    Nov 15
    https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-nov-889

    As the counterpoint, Jonathan Cook:

    Jonathan Cook: This Time the BBC Chose the Wrong Target
    Heads have rolled at the BBC, but not due to a journalistic blunder – it makes them all the time. It foolishly deferred to the billionaires in the political battle over image-laundering: where to direct the hate.
    November 13, 2025
    https://consortiumnews.com/2025/11/13/jonathan-cook-bbc-chose-the-wrong-target-this-time/

    How significant the BBC editing move turned out to be for indictments of Trump?

    Is Cook underplaying it or not? He is not an expert on that while Taibbi/Kirn are no experts on the other.

    Reply ↓
    1. Alice X

      In my view, the Trump edit was unforgivable, but then the BBC’s (mis) coverage of Gaza (and Palestine in general) has been also unforgivable, with vastly greater human cost.

      Reply ↓
  20. jefemt

    Eco-Marxism and Prometheus unbound. I dunno. What came to my mind was the aggressive disdain and antipathy toward ‘the Chinese” when I read the excellent, “Wolf Totem”, or learned about the Chinese, constantly diminishing and developing Tibet, latest in the dam on the Tsangpo.

    Then I wake up and realize I have fallen into the trap: another nation state populated by ‘others’.

    the problem, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselve. (Bard)
    we have met the enemy, and he is us (pogo)

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1217728.Wolf_Totem
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/406987.The_Heart_of_the_World

    Humans suck- starting with me. Conundrum carborundum.

    Reply ↓
  21. Ghost in the Machine

    My mother-in-law has started reading that Abundance book by Klein. I haven’t really been paying attention to that (I am embarrassed that I used to read books by the likes of Thomas Friedman in my younger years), but I gather it is the latest democrat political BS to lull those liberal affluent New York Times reading types away from real issues and solutions. Any recommended critiques of that book for me and her from the commentariat?

    Reply ↓
  22. antidlc

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ultramarathon-runner-lung-cancer-non-smoker-northwestern-medicine-michigan/
    A mild symptom was bothering a young dad. He had Stage IV lung cancer.

    Humphrey was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small cell adenocarcinoma, joining the growing number of young, non-smoking patients diagnosed with lung cancer. The rise may be driven by environmental or lifestyle factors, Dr. Jonathan Villena-Vargas, a thoracic surgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine, previously told CBS News. Villena-Vargas, who did not treat Humphrey, said there is no definitive reason for the increase.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lee

      In related news: Study Finds COVID mRNA Vaccines Boost Cancer Treatment Science Friday (14 minute audio).

      Over the last five years, billions of people have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine. New research has found an unanticipated result of these vaccines: Cancer treatments are more effective for some vaccinated patients, and many live longer than their unvaccinated counterparts. This news comes at a time where the federal government is slashing funding for mRNA research.

      Host Ira Flatow speaks to lead study author Adam Grippin and vaccine expert Eric Topol.

      The positive mRNA effect was observed in lung cancer and melanoma patients, and is independent of the antiviral component of the vaccine. The paper discussed published in Nature: SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines sensitize tumours to immune checkpoint blockade

      Reply ↓
  23. DJG, Reality Czar

    Dieterle of the Manhattan Institute bloviating about markets, food, and restaurant prices: “Instead of trusting the market and discerning customers, states and cities are considering policies that could end up hurting both restaurants and diners.”

    And as Yves Smith notes right away: Dining isn’t supposed to be adversarial. We all do recall the saying, don’t we? “Eating together is the most intimate thing that two people can do.”

    Admittedly, I am terribly spoiled here in the Chocolate City and in the Undisclosed Region, where people who run bakeries, the informal places that we call a piola, the pizzerie, and the gelaterie make the relation between customer, food, and the staff as simple and as warm as it can be. I am lucky in that I tend to be a creature of habit and frequent five or so places. The staff know me, and I get called “bello” or “caro” often.

    Meanwhile, somewhere along the way, the whole U.S. eatery realm lost its focus on what it is supposed to be doing: The pleasure of eating. Instead, Americans get restaurants who want the customer to engage in the whole tipping / tip-jar melodrama because the restaurant owners sure don’t want to pay proper wages. You get places where they tell you how long your “reservation will last” — at one bistrot inn Oak Park that later burned down (hmmmm), the owner told a group of us as we sat down how long we could have table for. Americans get that bullcrap about how the waiter is being sent home and has to bill you out mid-meal. This is mismanagement of something that should be simple and elegant (yes, even a pizza is elegant) into a typical joyless U.S. experience.

    In short, Dieterle really ought to get out more often.

    Reply ↓
  25. Anon

    Tucker Carlson’s Thomas Crooks investigation is really worth watching–pretty mind-blowing. It’s wild that FBI directors under both Biden (Wray) and Trump (Patel) seem to be involved in the cover-up. For months I’ve been hearing about how little we know about the shooter, and it turns out the shooter left a very clear, intensive digital footprint, where he was routinely leaving extremely violent replies to YT videos, etc. He starts off a passionate Trump supporter, threatening violence towards Omar and similar figures, then he transforms into someone expressing those same feelings, except towards Trump. Clear signs of a cover up: washing up the crime scene, cremating the body, stone-walling Congress and any reporter asking questions… you have to wonder why the FBI wouldn’t just release information saying that Crooks was a mentally ill person who had access to guns and left clear signs online that he was in danger of doing something violent. Really bizarre story.

    Reply ↓
    1. tegnost

      I did not believe he had no digital footprint.
      Norway is awfully close to another country replete with yahtzees.
      Anyway all we’re left with is inference now as particulars have been swept away.

      Reply ↓
    2. Mo's Bike Shop

      Handler gets assigned to him, screws up: CYA. Manager has to smooth over discrepancies that this creates for the next PowerPoint. Regional manager has to pry something coherent out of the stream coming up the chain. Director has to put his finger to the wind…etc

      Is there a Hanlon’s razor for bureaucratic functions?

      Reply ↓
  26. pjay

    – ‘The Politics of Humiliation: Reading Robert Kagan in the midst of America’s nightmare’ – The Baffler

    Quick show of hands: how many actually believe that Robert Kagan spends his time lamenting the decline of “liberal values” and the rise of “illiberal authoritarians” who use resentment and humiliation to manipulate the public? How many NC readers take seriously an article about Robert Kagan – or Anne Applebaum or Timothy Snyder – that focuses entirely on our “fragile” domestic institutions protecting “democracy” without a mention of the vicious neoconservative foreign policies for which they are major ideologists and which has helped rip these institutions apart? I believe Richard Greenwald, the author, is considered a “progressive.” If he is actually taking Kagan seriously, then he’s as hopeless as may others who go by this label.

    Of course the article is correct about the appeals to resentment and “humiliation” by right-wing demagogues. Right-wing demagogues have *always* used resentment and humiliation, and also misdirection in blaming relatively powerless scapegoats for systemic problems. Greenwald acknowledges this. But to place the likes of Kagan, Applebaum, and Snyder on the side of “liberal values” like those opposed to slavery, lynching, and segregation without acknowledging the fundamental Evils these neocons have helped unleash on the world is mind-blowing. He acts like Kagan’s heart is in the right place, but he just kind of misunderstands the sources of our discontent and our “feelings” of exclusion. What the Kagans, Applebaums, and Syders of the world have actually done is provide ideological cover for the neocon project while allowing their “liberal” readers to feel morally superior over their own scapegoats. I find it puzzling that Greenwald can write an article like without discussing Kagan’s central role in this endeavor.

    Reply ↓
    1. AG

      > “the article is correct about the appeals to resentment and “humiliation” by right-wing demagogues”

      I would even contest that firmly. The question is merely whose humiliation is permissive.
      “Kagan, Applebaum & Snyder” (the name of the law-firm for the devil?) have a whole flock of people who they would have no problem see killed or pushed into depravity.

      Matthew Hoh with Scott Horton last year I think had a conversation where they spoke about a visit by R Kagan in Afghanistan. Things were already going bad. The officer assigned to lead RK around pointed out the increasing problems. Every time RK would respond “Nah, I don´t think so”.

      Considering that RK´s “I dont think so” cost 6M peoples´ lives since the 9/11 “retaliation” which he and his besties helped bring about – who is truly humiliating whom?

      p.s. The Nazis had a very comprehensive legal framework and social security for their own. There was due process and all kids of “progressive” shit. (To this day some formative German social security laws go back to that era.) But if you happened to be a Jew all of a sudden none of that mattered. ie. You were not part of the club. Just too bad.

      Sorry if this is obvious to everyone here. But I have to stress this once more. I detest RK, AA, TS.

      Reply ↓
    2. .Tom

      > “But to place the likes of Kagan, Applebaum, and Snyder on the side of “liberal values” like those opposed to slavery, lynching, and segregation without acknowledging the fundamental Evils these neocons have helped unleash on the world is mind-blowing.”

      I don’t really see it so. “Liberal values” are duplicitous to the core. (See my comment below about Mersheimer on Judge Nap.) Liberalism is the political theory of the merchant class, the Whigs, as conservatism is the political theory of the landlord class, the Tories. The theories are not famous for being coherent. They just need to generate stories good enough for political justification. All are ready to serve up these stories when their backers want the state to be barbarous and there’s enough profit/power/privilege at stake.

      The liberal values that Kagan was defending and worrying about (i.e. the status quo ante) has been good for the Kagan clan. I can well believe that he was concerned about incoming social instability and political chaos. The puppet masters of war need a more-or-less predictable system in order to know which strings will do what. So he talks up the institutions of power he can influence as liberal.

      Conspiracy theories of Russiagate 2016 and the attempts on Trumps life 2024 include that TPTB were unwilling to let someone so unreliable and unpredictable be president, i.e. their boss. Idk if that’s the case but these conspiracies too would be an expression of liberal values.

      Reply ↓
    3. John Wright

      Anyone who will discuss Robert Kagan without mentioning Kagan’s wife, Victoria Nuland, in the context of a collapsing democracy in the USA, seems to be excluding a significant piece of relevant information.

      Perhaps the population of the USA is tired of the costly wars, advocated by the Kagan/Nuland clan, and concluding that the USA’s democracy is not working for the average American (or, for that matter, the average Iraqi, Afghani, Palestinian. Libyan, Ukrainian)

      Here is a link to an earlier 2005 op-ed by Kagan in the Washington Post, in which he suggests that one cannot know that the world free of USA instigated wars would be any better off.

      Short summary: it is unknowable, because….

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2005/06/19/whether-this-war-was-worth-it/fe692946-c34b-4c14-bc8c-81b63646dbb2/

      Non-historian me can borrow from Kagan’s Washington Post editorial of 2005 and assert the collapsing democracy in the USA, that Kagan laments, may leave the world and the USA better off.

      Reply ↓
  28. 4paul

    I did a quick play with searching the Epstein emails linked in the Zeteo twiXt.

    It is VERY on-the-nose that Chomsky is in this tranche … my spidey sense tells me this is manipulation.

    That said, Glenn Greenwald gave a long sermon on his rumble dot com show about his friend Chomsky saying about Epstein: he did his time therefore he is a new man … Greenwald essentially: “Elites gonna Elite”.

    Don’t have heroes LOL.

    Interestingly I independently zeroed in on the email from an Obama lawyer that was quoted on the news (while searching for other people), but here is a Chomsky email that sounds, based on hindsight, like Epstein is probing for info to train AI and/or spyware?

    Our discussions the past couple days have mentioned that AI does not think or understand “meaning”, it uses indexing, this discussion sounds like exactly that … so if Epstein was getting information out of Chomsky, what the F did Chomsky get out of the relationship? Surely Chomsky not a stool pigeon and he knew Epstein was an Operator who wanted Results for his Clients …

    anyhoo, here’s the emails in question, with a couple great anecdotes about reading:

    https://journaliststudio.google.com/pinpoint/document-view?collection=2283eeed70befac7&p=1&docid=50e22b9b55e70806_2283eeed70befac7_0&dapvm=2

    Reply ↓
  29. tegnost

    The DNC needs workers in office in order to ride herd over them. My guess is behind the scenes it’s all hands on deck to prevent any movement left. Major crisis in more effective evil land.
    Managers gotta manage….

    Reply ↓
  30. Mikel

    The Final Betrayal: How Technocracy Destroyed America – Patrick Woo

    I’d go out on the ledge one further:
    How Taylorism (and its international offshoots) Destroyed Countries and Continents.

    From the 20th century through the present.

    Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie

      But isn’t Taylorism the inevitable product of a system where once we kept score by quarterly profit report, and now by stock price? In a One-Who-Dies-With-The-Most-Toys-Wins world, Taylorism is an advance.

      Reply ↓
  31. Mikel

    Silicon Valley data centers totalling nearly 100MW could ‘sit empty for years’ due to lack of power — huge installations are idle because Santa Clara can’t cope with surging electricity demands – Tom’s Hardware (resilc)

    According to The Matrix screenplay, this is solved by harvesting human beings for their energy.
    The world has been turned into one big data center in The Matrix. (environment and nature destroyed)

    Reply ↓
  32. Jason Boxman

    So that blog post on the cohort theory of drug death epidemics has me thinking, that perhaps COVID is similar in that, people will only take it seriously when the harms are clear in the way of death. If repeat infections really do eventually break most people, and there’s a wave of deaths, future generations might want to avoid that, although those generations are all getting repeatedly infected at school today, year after year. This is completely involuntary for minors. Who’s going to be left standing? Just how broken might a lifetime of infection leave people?

    This timeline is lit.

    Also, lol, this flu season does not have to be brutal. Gizmodo is stupid. With universal masking we eliminated a substrain of the flu in 2020. These people are useless morons.

    Reply ↓
    1. nyleta

      So, COVID BA 3.2.2 that iis currently brewing up in Western Australia has reportedly made quite the jump in functionality. Something to keep an eye out for.

      Reply ↓
  33. Tom Stone

    I highly recommend Kash Patel’s children’s book as an example of the over the top butt sucking of Trump’s administration.
    I am increasingly of the mind that Trump believes what comes out of his mouth, including, but not limited to his claim that he has ended six wars and that the US economy is doing great.
    We may well have reached Trump’s “Sell by” date, his usefullness to the oligarchy is waning quickly…and if Trump was to be Philip to Vance’s Alexander the plan doesn’t seem to be working out.

    Reply ↓
    1. Henry Moon Pie

      I saw Tucker’s little video of Kash and Bongino and was amazed how much Patel resembled a rabbit looking down the barrel of a gun. They’re doing a great job of building interest, or at least curiosity, about a Reveal All that’s never coming if they can help it. It’s hard to even imagine what makes them act like that.

      Reply ↓
  34. Jason Boxman

    From The D.N.C. Ordered Workers Back to the Office. Its Union Isn’t Pleased.

    Like, seriously, how stupid do you have to be?

    The pandemic is long over, but the fight inside the Democratic National Committee over a full-time return to its office has just begun.

    Enduring Outcomes of COVID-19 Work Absences on the US Labor Market

    Literally clear evidence from yesterday posted here. There aren’t enough words for how stupid this timeline is. None.

    Is there intelligent life on this planet? Help.

    Reply ↓
  36. AG

    re: EU´s new secret intelligence

    via Tom Griffin

    Von Der Leyen faces Truman’s dilemma on intelligence
    https://intelligencehistory.substack.com/p/von-der-leyen-faces-trumans-dilemma

    European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen is setting up her own intelligence body, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

    The unit, to be formed inside the commission’s secretariat-general, plans to hire officials from across the EU’s intelligence community and collate intelligence for joint purposes, said four people briefed on the plans.

    Steady State, a group of US national security veterans, interpreted this as evidence that ‘trust in U.S. intelligence is slipping. Allies are building their own networks.’

    Reply ↓
  37. MicaT

    Silicon valley data
    The issue is there isn’t enough wire capacity going to that location.
    There is enough power in California.
    Unlike other states that seem to have both lack of wire and power capacity.

    Reply ↓
  38. MicaT

    I haven’t followed the hemp industry for a while.
    If I understand the issue it’s that people being creative figured out they could sell hemp based high level THC and not be regulated as pot/marihuana.

    It seems like that does against the spirt of the regulations. I’d just allow it to happen, but I guess the hemp folks are stepping on someone’s toes from the pot world. Curious who could have gotten that into the bill?

    I hope it doesn’t effect hemp oils, seeds, fabrics and the many other products that are just at the super low to almost zero thc.

    Reply ↓
    1. amfortas

      im no biochemist, nor lawyer, but i think it has to do with THC Delta9 being the actually illegal part of regular old Pot…while the stuff even i can buy at the dern gas station is Delta8 and/or Delta10.
      so its a loophole, and the Hemp Industry wasnt bamboozled into it, at all.
      its part and parcel of the whole thing, and totally in line with the Capitalism, uber alles we say we’re all for.
      i just dont want to go back to the days when the cops were all gung ho for potheads.
      it was stupid, then…and it would be even stupider to return to it.
      but just like then, the real reason will be an excuse to persecute people you dont like.(while uber rich pedos run off with the pie, i might add)

      Reply ↓
      1. Henry Moon Pie

        On my level as a consumer, I buy my “medical” pot at a “dispensary,” while down the street is the old head shop selling this stuff. Of course, you can also get cannabis seeds there since we’re a legal recreational state with a home-grow provision.

        Reply ↓
        1. amfortas

          i need new seeds, but am afraid of the mails/parcel services…hangover from bad old days.
          hafta wait for somebody to go elk hunting in colorado, etc,lol.
          (i’m halfway, and folks stop over, here)

          Reply ↓
  39. .Tom

    Mearsheimer around 4-5 mins into the Judge Nap video…

    Well, the problem here for Israel is that its reputation is in tatters. uh that has long portrayed itself as this noble liberal democracy, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, a country that has western values. You know, the whole argument. Uh and what’s happened since October 7th is that it’s been exposed that that is a distortion of reality. And in fact, the more you look at the Israelis, the more they look like Nazi Germany.

    I don’t buy this defense of western values.

    I no longer see it as “a distortion of reality.” Israel’s extermination of the people of Gaza is an expression of western values. Israel follows the general pattern we’ve seen over and over: exploit or create a causus belli, make a simplistic moral justification, then proceed with the violence, destruction, thievery and carpetbagging. Israel is the West. The West is Israel. Hence Mearsheimer’s contrast of Nazi Germany as something different from western values is unconvincing. These are the true expressions of western values. The “noble liberal democracy” stuff is bedtime stories we tell ourselves.

    If western nations over the last two years were using their armed forces to deliver aid and protection to Gaza, pushing the IDF back, I might think differently.

    Reply ↓
    1. amfortas

      aye. one of the most devastating things i learned as a late teenager in the 80’s was that We were the Evil Empire.
      all that shining city on a hill, beacon of freedom, “i hold my lamp beside the golden door”…all that was camouflage for the rapine and plunder.
      one cannot un-see it, i’m afraid.
      which is why, of course, the Mundane…the Ordinaries…resist learning such things in the first place.
      just stay in the Cave, watch the shadows on the wall…its so much easier in there….

      Reply ↓
      1. JBird4049

        At least during the Cold War, the American Empire had to have some tiny pretensions to being civilized, which got the feds to support the Civil Rights Movement, Medicare, and the Race to the Moon. Right now, despite the Second Cold War, the Empire has no shame, but then the leadership during the Cold War actually had had lives and were adults, unlike the soulless grifters we have now.

        Reply ↓
  40. Observer

    Yves Smith was one of the early critics of PE especially from the investment side, i.e., they were ripping off their investors such as pension funds, even as they were ripping off workers, customers and communities.

    Hopefully, Mamdani will begin the pushback from the community side. There are levers that communities can use to increase the friction on the “investments” or better put “raids” on communities

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/15/mamdani-lina-khan-transition-team-private-equity

    PS: Since I am mentioned in the article you should consider whether you want to publish

    Reply ↓
  41. AG

    re: Italian labour union vs. Gaza genocide

    via German daily JUNGE WELT

    Italian video interview with José Nivoi, from Italian union of dock workers CALP, about their fight against the genocide

    optional Engl. dubbing by YT

    26 min.
    https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/512824.gerwerkschaft-warum-soll-ich-waffen-f%C3%BCr-den-krieg-verladen.html

    +

    Francesca Albanese with Chris Hedges about her latest report

    46 min.
    https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/the-member-states-complicit-in-genocide

    Reply ↓
  42. AG

    re: Germany vs. the free press

    There is a bit of resistance now against the sanctions against Turkish-German journalist Hüseyin Doğru who was put onto a sanctions list for allegedly being a propaganda outlet of “Moscow.” It is funny enough though that Doğru himself is against the SMO and claims that in RU he would be put behind bars because he is calling it an “invasion of Ukraine” which in his words is prohibited in Russia.

    (Which shows you how far off the so-called discourse in Germany has been derailed from sane and honest standards.)

    2 high level members of BSW (e.g. Michael von der Schulenberg) have taken up the case and even the cowardish German association of journalists is critical.

    BERLINER ZEITUNG

    use google translate

    Accusation of Russian propaganda: How a German journalist is being sidelined by EU sanctions
    The EU has sanctioned a German journalist for the first time. Experts warn against the arbitrary intervention. Could it soon hit anyone?
    https://archive.is/XFEq7

    “(…)
    In response to an inquiry from the Berliner Zeitung, the EU Commission presented its view on the matter. According to the Commission, Doğru is the founder and representative of AFA Medya A.Ş., a media company based in Istanbul. This company, in turn, operates the Red portal, which comprises a number of media platforms and maintains “close financial and organizational links to Russian state propaganda institutions and actors.” The EU Commission stated that there are “deep-seated structural links, including interrelationships between individual employees and rotations, with Russian state media organizations.”
    (…)
    But Doğru denies the accusations. He admits that he previously worked for Redfish, which was funded by the Russian broadcaster Ruptly. However, he left the company in the wake of the war in Ukraine. “I have always criticized the fact that it is an invasion of Ukraine ,”
    (…)
    It’s curious how the accusation got started. In June 2024, the Tagesspiegel reported on Red, citing “German security circles,” and wrote that the trail of the media outlet led “to a Russian propaganda network.” Three months later, none other than then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken picked up on the Tagesspiegel’s investigation and presented it as proven that Red was acting as a propaganda tool of the Kremlin.
    (…)”

    The last paragraph here contains the juicy part as interference of German secret intelligence is plausible.

    Reply ↓
  43. Ben Panga

    “wE JusT nEed bEtTeR mESsaGiNg” – useless centrist idiots

    In this article:
    fight/fighting appears 7 times.
    policy/ies appears 0 times

    Gallego Pitches Demoralized Democrats on a Midterm Message (NYT via archive)

    Mr. Gallego was test driving what Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists say will be the party’s core message for the 2026 midterm elections, centered around placing the blame for massive increases in health care premiums and looming cuts to Medicaid squarely at Republicans’ feet.

    One year from now, the hopeful thinking goes, voters will not focus on the Democrats’ surrender in the shutdown fight, but instead on their anger at Republicans for refusing to extend the health care subsidies.

    Mr. Gallego said.. “we’re going to continue to make sure that we fight to make sure that people have access to affordable health care.”…

    [Later in the article]…

    “We know that the Republican Party has had a plan in place for years, and they’re implementing it,” [voter] Mr. Norrish said, referencing the Project 2025 blueprint that conservatives had devised before President Trump took office. “What do the Democrats have in terms of a long-term plan?”

    Reply ↓
  44. Jason Boxman

    Trump has suggested he’s made a decision on Venezuela military operations. Here’s what we know

    It’s go time

    President Donald Trump suggested he has made up his mind on a course of action in Venezuela following multiple high-level briefings this week and a mounting US show of force in the region.

    Officials briefed Trump this week on options for military operations inside Venezuela, four sources told CNN, as he weighs the risks and benefits of launching a scaled-up campaign to potentially oust President Nicolás Maduro. The US military, meanwhile, has amassed more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops into the region as part of what the Pentagon branded “Operation Southern Spear.”

    Reply ↓
  45. Richard Childers

    “We published a searchable database of the entire set of new Epstein files and emails.”

    URL: https://journaliststudio.google.com/pinpoint/search?collection=2283eeed70befac7

    I just did a quick search for “Ellison” and discovered what some people might regard as pay dirt:

    https://journaliststudio.google.com/pinpoint/document-view?collection=2283eeed70befac7&p=1&docid=5997bd13b4c2cb96_2283eeed70befac7_0&dapvm=2

    ‘Oracle Corp. CEO Larry Ellison gave a hilarious lecture on “How to Destroy Evidence and Make False Statements.”‘

    Hilarious! He told his audience the stone cold truth and they all laughed and pretended it was a joke.

    California Department of Justice, are you awake? Or are y’all drunk at the switch, AGAIN?

    More info: https://ca-civ393104.org

    See also: https://salanave-runyon.org/herbie.html#06oracle

    Reply ↓
  47. Richard Childers

    Has anyone ever heard of ‘Shitat Matzliach’?

    It refers to a behavior that is encoded in the following joke:

    Guy goes into a restaurant, has dinner, receives the bill.

    Scrutinizes the bill. Sees he is being billed $20 for ‘works’.

    “What’s ‘works’?”, he asks the waiter.

    “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t”, the waiter answers.

    Another word for this behavior is ‘chutzpah’.

    It would seem that this Shitat Matzliach is the soil in which chutzpah flowers.

    And so I am trying to better understand Shitat Matzliach.

    This seems to be the best explanation I’ve been able to find so far:

    https://gameruprising.to/thread-64607.html

    More info: https://salanave-runyon.org/herbie.html#08jdl

    Food for thought

    Reply ↓
  48. Jessica

    “My Little Runaway”
    A little before my time, but I heard plenty as a golden oldie. Nice catchy tune.
    When I heard it a few years ago for the first time in years and years, it rang quite different, dark actually.
    Why did she run away? Did the person whose words are being sung have anything to do with that?

    Reply ↓

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