Dear patient readers,
Thank you for bearing with us during the Cloudflare outage yesterday. Sadly that also threw me off my rhythm, hence a lack of original posts by me today.
UC Berkeley Scientists Hail Breakthrough In Decoding Whale Communication SFGate
No free fucking play – then the children’s party ends in chaos Aftonbladet via machine translation (Micael T)
Asymmetry: Some notes on vulnerability Samuel Kimbriel
Super-recognizers sample visual information of superior computational value for facial recognition Proceedings of the Royal Society of Biological Science. I am a super bad recognizer!
Everyday microplastics could be fueling heart disease Science Direct (Anthony L)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
Sometimes I see one of these charts that just stops me in my tracks.
Alzheimer’s.
Late onset.Don’t lie to yourself about this one. pic.twitter.com/lXAJ8jbswf
— tern (@1goodtern) November 17, 2025
Climate/Environment
U.S. rejection of climate science is a call to action for the rest of the world Eugene Linden, Los Angeles Times
Methane pollution still rises, but UN reports hope for near future reductions Independent
‘We Are Forgotten Here’: As NYC Builds Seawalls, This Queens Community Feels Left Behind NYSFocus
‘I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe’ This is climate breakdown Guardian
The Arctic as we knew it is disappearing right in front our eyes… crazy warm anomalies up to ~20°C! 😱
Do you see the cold anomalies that (according to climate denials) counterbalance the warm ones?
No, because they hardly occur…
Via @WeatherProf pic.twitter.com/GIEGhwTjYa
— Melaine Le Roy (@subfossilguy) November 16, 2025
Landslides kill dozens as heavy rains lash Southeast Asia Aljazera. Our rainy season normally ends in October. It’s overcast, really cool and raining ~ every other day, which should be over…particularly since high season has supposedly started. Not beach weather!
Wheat could require dramatically more water during future heat waves, scientists warn Qazinform
The achievement of a degrowth future requires system change not green new deals Bill Mitchell. As we have been saying, but good to have company.
Japan-China Row
China bans Japanese seafood as diplomatic dispute deepens Reuters
China-Japan Feud Escalates Foreign Policy
Twitter embeds currently not working. This did include a video:
China and Japan are in a vicious game of chicken over Taiwan Economist
Japan’s no longer ambiguous stance on Taiwan Asia Times (Kevin W)
Africa
Nestlé accused of ’risking health of babies for profit’ over added sugar in cereals sold in African countries Guardian (resilc)
South of the Border
Trump authorizes CIA to prepare plans for covert operations in Venezuela: Report Anadolu Agency
Sheriff David Hathaway : Breaks Silence on Government-Sanctioned Killings Judge Napolitano, YouTube. Way more informative than I expected.
European Disunion
Mearsheimer: Europe’s Bleak Future American Conservative (Michael Hudson)
French winegrowers protest as crisis deepens The Drinks Business
Islamists flee Sweden – leaving behind millions in unpaid tax debts Expressen via machine translation. Micael T: “Side-effect of privatized schools being funded by taxpayer money and zero legislative control or enforcement. Neoliberalism! Yuhuu!!!”
Old Blighty
UK Labour to Let Authorities Take Jewelry From Asylum-Seekers as Part of Sweeping New Immigration Crackdown Common Dreams
NHS faces ‘doom loop’ without AI, says Euan Blair Telegraph. Colonel Smithers: “Where there’s a trough, there’s a Blair.” From Ignacio of our Covid Brain Trust:
Holy Sh#t!
We are surrounded by snake oil salesmen!
“Productivity doom loop” sounds horrible! Though i believe that would be exactly the outcome if AI tools get in charge of HC operations at NHS.
I find all this nearly unbelievable.‘Deeply shocking’: Nigel Farage faces fresh claims of racism and antisemitism at school Guardian (Colonel Smithers)
Israel v. The Resistance
Ok, officially confirmed. X limited Hebrew translation, so we dont see all the open calls for genocide. I’m surprised they let Grok admit this. https://t.co/O9oPjbq2xA pic.twitter.com/XyKCN9CFIh
— Ali Ahmadi (@AliR_Ahmadi) November 17, 2025
⭕️ Israel’s “Iron coffin” Torture
Palestine Prisoners Media has documented the testimony of a Palestinian man released from inside the Israeli prison system where he describes being forced to sleep 10-12 nights inside what’s known as the “coffin”, a narrow iron cage, where he… pic.twitter.com/KorTwDUgqX
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 18, 2025
Poland Repurposed a Nazi Factory Site to Make TNT to Drop on Gaza DropSite (Robin K)
Iranian nuclear experts held second covert meeting with Russian weapons institute Financial Times. Lead story. No archived version yet.
Rainfall triggers flooding in western Iran after months of severe drought Iran International
Iran’s snow cover plummets 98.6% as water crisis deepens Intellinews
New Not-So-Cold War
Polish ‘Sabotage’ False Flag Churns More Threats Against Russia Amid AFU’s Shock Collapse in Seversk Simplicius
Scoop: U.S. secretly drafting new plan to end Ukraine war Axios. If this is correct, it’s yet another flip flop. Having effectively repudiated the Alaska position (accepting the Russian “no ceasefire”), this claims it’s back on and Ukraine is going along. I don’t see how Russia can do more than play along given how totally untrustworthy, even by US standards, that Trump has been. And the Ukraine front lines are now cracking at many points. Putin would face close to a domestic revolt were he to settle. And the Europeans are not ready to agree either even if Ukraine is finally sobering up as to how untenable its position is. But then again, by the time the US, Ukraine, and the rabid EU faction led by Ursula von der Leyen, Mark Rutte, Kaja Kallas, and Freidrich Merz could possibly agree on anything, the war will over.
Ukraine’s Days are Numbered Larry Johnson
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Google is collecting troves of data from downgraded Nest thermostats The Verge
Imperial Collapse Watch
Living Backwards Aurelien
WHAT A CRANKY NEW BOOK ABOUT PROGRESS GETS RIGHT Atlantic (Anthony L)
Trump 2.0
Trump has ‘blurred’ line between military and politics, ex-officers warn Guardian (resilc)
Trump designates Saudi Arabia as a major non-NATO US ally Anadolu Agency
Trump Says Saudi Leader Knew Nothing of Journalist Murder, Rejecting CIA Assessment Wall Street Journal
Appeals court panel mulls $1M penalty for Trump in lawsuit against Hillary Clinton Politico
The billionaire Trump chose to lead NASA has ties to Chinese government Oligarch Watch
Immigration
EXCLUSIVE: How the Trump administration sparked a health crisis for ICE detainees Popular Information
Contractor Paying Random People $300 to Physically Track Immigrants for ICE 404 Media
L’affaire Epstein. Apologies for the YouTube embeds that you can’t play locally, but Musk went to the White House and suddenly lots of tweets no longer embed, particularly ones with juicy videos. So trust me, the two YouTubes below are very much worth your attention.
Senate Agrees to Pass Bill to Force Epstein Files’ Release, Sending It to Trump Time
Epstein’s Brother: GOP Is SCRUBBING Files Of Names Kim Iversen, YouTube (fk)
From a tweet by Ryder (hat tip Chuck L) on the exchange below: “This is absolutely historic. Unbelievable. Listen to what this president say. I honestly think this press meeting is the end of him.”
A different incident: “Quiet Piggy”: Trump Snaps at Female Reporter Asking About Epstein New Republic
Epstein Bill Passes as Top Official Circulates Plan to Block Transparency Ken Klippenstein (fk)
Jeffrey Epstein Pursued Swiss Rothschild Bank to Finance Israeli Cyberweapons Empire DropSite
GOP Clown Car
Federal court blocks Texas Republicans’ redrawn congressional map NBC (Kevin W)
Mr. Market Is Having a Sad
Have the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Stock Markets Peaked? Michael Shedlock. A technical take.
How the shutdown broke America’s food chain — and what happens next Grist
AI
The Whole Financial World Is Terrified of Nvidia’s Earnings Call Futurism
Click through, this tweet is a must read:
🦔CoreWeave is spending $310 million on interest expense against just $51.9 million in operating income, borrowing money to pay interest on previous loans. The AI data center company went public in March at $40 per share, peaked at $187 in June, and now trades around $75 while… pic.twitter.com/jRRvhkmJrJ
— Hedgie (@HedgieMarkets) November 17, 2025
Rampant AI demand throws the memory chip market into turmoil Nikkei. Readers have said that the cost of RAM has skyrocketed.
America’s AI giants surging strong and swift into India Asia Times (Kevin W)
The Bezzle
Great Bitcoin Crash of 2025 Has It Lagging Bonds, Gold and More Bloomberg
How Soaring Energy Demand Helped Push Bitcoin Below $90,000 OilPrice (resilc)
Tech Billionaires Found a New Way To Extract Wealth | Ft. John Russell YouTube (resilc)
Class Warfare
Elon Musk is set to make more than every U.S. elementary teacher combined Washington Post (resilc)
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
I’m copy pasting the full text of the Drop Site tweet in case people skipped over the twitter embed:
Palestine Prisoners Media has documented the testimony of a Palestinian man released from inside the Israeli prison system where he describes being forced to sleep 10-12 nights inside what’s known as the “coffin”, a narrow iron cage, where he was “connected to a small tube through which he was fed a nutritional liquid not exceeding a quarter cup of plastic.” He couldn’t speak or move and his breathing was monitored.
Imad Nabhan was arrested December 2023 and transferred to Sde Timan prison, where he was held for 35 days and subsequently transferred between several Israeli prisons, naming the Negev, Ofer, Ramla, Megiddo, and several temporary detention centers until he was released in a recent prisoner swap. Amongst these prisons he described what’s called “Bird Rooms” where agents disguised as prisoners try to elicit information from inmates.
In the mornings Nabhan described being held in the “disco room” where music is blasted at excruciating volume. Then, during interrogation sessions, he was seated in a metal chair connected to electricity where he was repeatedly asked to collaborate in exchange for freedom and support. “During the interrogation, which lasts for several hours, if Imad asked for a sip of water, the interrogator would take the bottle and pour it slowly into the trash bin, telling him to cooperate with him to drink and quench his thirst.” Electric batons were also used on his feet.
Prisoners lost tens of kilos in weight and skin infections were rife: “If he requested an increase in his food ration, the response was that the prison administration feeds the prisoners so they are able to go to interrogation, satisfying the prisoners is not the goal. So, he and his companions would resort to collecting the breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals and eating them before sleep, hoping they might feel full and could sleep.” Scabies is allowed to spread in the prisons, “which led to prisoners developing boils and ulcers, causing some prisoners to die as martyrs, and others to suffer nerve damage or an inability to move.”
Cruel Israelites. Almost certainly not alone in the club but with high probability the most systematic in cruelty and crime these days. Who is the sub-human here the tortured or the torturer?
It’s very hard to beat the actual 1940s nazis, but the zionists have managed to do so…..
They might have managed to beat the actual 1940s Nazis from Germany, but are still a far cry from Nazis of the Balkan, Baltics, and Ukraine. Those local Nazis managed to shock Germans with their cruelty, back in the day. Germans wanted to depersonalize and industrialize the killings, and those wannabe-Germans wanted to savor it. It is not an accident that the post Cold War revival of Nazism in those regions happened so fast (in the name of democracy, and western values, and whatnot).
‘Hedgie
@HedgieMarkets
🦔CoreWeave is spending $310 million on interest expense against just $51.9 million in operating income, borrowing money to pay interest on previous loans. The AI data center company went public in March at $40 per share, peaked at $187 in June, and now trades around $75 while carrying $14 billion in debt.’
For those who cannot see the whole thread-
https://xcancel.com/HedgieMarkets/status/1990530634960478584
Yves is right. This tweet is a must read and shows how our business elite are just nuts.
Here a candidate to play the role New Century had played in early 2007.
The really striking analysis this week by Zitron showed that Open AI’s inference expense is huge and actually increases with new generations of LLM models, shattering the assumed software profitability model (large capital outlays followed by near zero marginal costs, leading to profitability once scale is achieved). Would appear LLMs are a new example of the old joke, selling at a loss but making up for it in volume! Even ignoring the issue of rapid depreciation of top end GPUs, this looks bleak.
US LLMs on the hyperscaler model is what you actually mean, not LLMs.
Because the Chinese model of AI is working fine so far, by comparison. Most significantly, here in 2025 they’re already massively producing AI applications on the so-called Edge — that is, autonomous and semi-autonomous robots, vehicles, which therefore require low-energy AI models like forex the neuromorphic AI that Gary Marcus is so hot on.
Whereas in the US hyperscaler model — or mythology — one of the justifications for it was that they’d use it to build out to that circa 2030.
One more potential US technological lead — like the one it potentially had in nuclear power tech seventy-five years ago — that the death grip of American capitalist ideology and short term American capitalist extractionism has squandered
Yes the US approach of massive hyperscalers attempting to create monopolies of scale generating enormous economic rents.
About a year and a half ago, a random YouTuber (Nobody Special Finance) raised flags about Nvidia-Coreweave and the background of Coreweave.
I remember posting about the site, but haven’t checked it for a while. Those were the only posts of his that I had watched.
File under AI. From David Hughes.
Review of Iain Davis, The Technocratic Dark State
One of the Most Important Books That You Will Read
https://dhughes.substack.com/p/review-of-iain-davis-the-technocratic
I think I must be out of touch. The essay/book review by David Hughes reads to me like word soup. I do not understand the need to adopt the creepy and bizarre terminology of the so-called Technocratic Dark State in order to analyze it. Do the new computerized tools and techniques bring a difference in kind to the nut case dream of ruling the world? Instead of IBM punch cards and sorting machines, rooms full of high-powered computers can handle the task. The tools have changed but the goals are the same. Why drag in new language to analyze an old threat with gibber?
The new language comes from the new Silicon Valley AI tech guys. They invented the new terms for their ‘new world.’ New buzz-words for the in-the-know tech crowd, don’t’cha know. /;)
Iain Davis’s book is an explainer and mapper of the new words, the new ideologies and plans of that crowd for those outside that fairly closed world, imo. A way to parse what is being said. Remembering that ‘insider language’ often sounds like gibberish to outsiders, where language itself can be a power play. / ;)
“Instead of IBM punch cards and sorting machines, rooms full of high-powered computers can handle the task. The tools have changed but the goals are the same.”
Adam Curtis’s doc series from 1992 “Pandora’s Box” – Episodes 1 thru 3 comes to mind these days.
It was one of his better series, more journalism – interviews with people involved, vintage clips from the viewpoint of the subjects.
Ep. 1 – Soviet Union focus
Ep. 2 – USA focus
Ep. 3 – Britain focus
It’s 6 total, but those are the three worth another look.
Opening from the original essays on Unlimited Hangout:
City-States Without Limits – Part 1
A powerful group of Silicon Valley oligarchs are using the Trump administration to push for the construction of privatized city-states in the US. Their interests are aligned with a global network of oligarchs who want to move away from the global governance of nation-states to the global governance of an international network of city-states. The intention is for the city-states to form a “patchwork” of realms overseen by a regional balance of power global governance system: the Multipolar World Order.
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2025/10/investigative-reports/city-states-without-limits-part-1/
A new asylum policy announced Monday by the UK Labour Party will allow authorities to confiscate the jewelry and other belongings of asylum-seekers in order to pay for their claims to be processed.
Wow. Sanctioned thievery, where does it end? How long before asylum seekers are sent directly to labor camps?
I guess empathy is running low amongst the “coalition of the willing”.
I seem to remember some Scandinavian country doing the same with refugees several years ago but I forgot which one. Update. Just did a search and found that it was Denmark back in 2016-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/26/danish-parliament-approves-plan-to-seize-assets-from-refugees
Thank you, both.
Home Office junior minister and son of Neil, Stephen Kinnock, is married to, but separated from Helle Thorning Schmidt, former Danish PM and head of Save The Children. He suggested that Danish solution to his new boss, the opportunist Shabana Mahmood.
The Kinnocks have built a property empire in London and south Wales worth millions.
At Save The Children, Schmidt was called Gucci Helle and Grace Mugabe.
The soon to be former couple met at the College of Europe.
The UK government in fact has explicitly stated that it will model its future refugee immigration system on Denmark’s, which is supposedly ECHR-compliant. (I don’t know the specifics of how because I haven’t looked.)
And you’re in Australia, which has an even more severe regime than Denmark’s.
It’s closing time in the gardens of the West in more ways than one, it appears.
Oz’s regime may be severe but at least we don’t shake down refugees for jewelry, money, mobiles, etc. That would be considered just tacky.
Well, no argument there. Starmer’s government is tacky and corrupt — and those are its good points. Because more critically it’s stupid and incompetent.
Lol, the Guardian article on Farage dovetails nicely,
It is the hectoring tone, the “jeering quality”, in Nigel Farage’s voice today that brings it all back for Peter Ettedgui. “He would sidle up to me and growl: ‘Hitler was right,’ or ‘Gas them,’ sometimes adding a long hiss to simulate the sound of the gas showers,” Ettedgui says of his experience of being in a class with Farage at Dulwich college in south London.
Nice guy.
Cruelty to no purpose. Hard to imagine this raising any substantial amount of money. Imagining myself as an asylum seeker, the moment that I hear about this I immediately make other plans for any valuables that I happen to have. Even burying them under a random landmark in Calais makes more sense than just handing them over to the British government at the border.
I was in Calais about this time a year ago. It’s been transformed into a hellhole. Total neglect by the municipal authorities to do anything serious to save the central city and surrounding areas from decline. I would think twice before heading up there if I were looking to make it to the UK. There’s nothing but a CRS beating and a cold night on the street to look forward to. The groups along the main drag to the port look like they’ve been on the road for months, in rags. NGO help nowhere to be seen. They’ve been harassed and probably afraid to intervene for risk of a beating or getting gassed. Horrific.
Thank you.
I have observed similar and also east, on the autoroute from Dunkerque to the Belgian border and, south, on the autoroute des estuaires from Boulogne to Le Havre.
Gotta fill up those gold reserves somehow.
…the trick is to paint your 18k gold toilet in white latex
Nobody on the road
Nobody on the beach
I feel it in the air
Larry Summers out of reach
Empty lake, empty streets
The sun goes down alone
I’m driving by your house
Though I know you’re not home
But I can see you-
Your bloated skin shinin’ in the sun
You got your hair combed back and your sunglasses on, baby
And I can tell your love for Epstein Island will still be strong
After the ploys of Summers have gone
I never will forget those nights
I wonder if it was a dream
Remember how you made Harvard go crazy?
Remember how it made them scream
Now I don’t understand what happened to their money
But babe, they’re not gonna get it back
I’m gonna show you what hubris is made of
I can see you-
Your bloated skin shinin’ in the sun
I see you walking things back real slow and you’re smilin’ at everyone
I can tell your love for Epstein Island will still be strong
After the ploys of Summers have gone
Out on the road today, I saw an Ivy League sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said, “Don’t look back. You can never look back”
You thought you knew what love was
What did you know?
Those days are gone forever
You should just let them go but-
I can see you-
Your bloated skin shinin’ in the sun
You got your alibi down pat and that scapegoating on, baby
And I can tell your love for Epstein Island will still be strong
After the ploys of Summers have gone
I can see you-
Your bloated skin shinin’ in the sun
You got that walking things back look and those Wayfarers on, baby
I can tell your love for Epstein Island will still be strong
After the ploys of Summers have gone
The Boys of Summer, by Don Henley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RUIeX6UCT8&list=RD6RUIeX6UCT8
Poor Larry had to resign from the board of OpenAI, too.
I didn’t know that the same company that claimed to be run as an ethical and not-for-profit entity had Larry Summers on the board. I’m sure he’ll be replaced by someone totally ethical and with a reputation that’s beyond reproach … like MBS, for example.
Nice work, as usual.
A sulking Alan Dershowitz wonders why he doesn’t rate a stanza.
With the release of the Epstein files, it will be an ongoing saga for the next coupla years. But there will have to be sacrificial lambs to draw away attention from very powerful people and both Summers and Dershowitz each may be wondering if they will be a sacrificial lamb. One can hope.
(lets do this different, i’ve supplied the first stanza, feel free to pile on…)
Yeah!
I been up, I been down
Take my word, my way around
I ain’t askin’ for much
No no, Jeffrey, take me downtown
I’m just Dersh lookin’ for some Epstein Island turf
To maintain that double z elevation,
He’s got regs
He knows how to use them
He never begs,
don’t you dare accuse him
He holds cards
Wondering how to play them
He works the mainstream airwaves
Does anyone believe him
He likes to toss it
but don’t you gossip
He’ll litigate
Financial Times: Iranian nuclear experts held second covert meeting with Russian weapons institute
https://archive.ph/hquC4
Thanks. From para 1 – “to obtain sensitive technologies with potential nuclear weapons applications”
why? Because it also has NON-nuclear weapons potential too.
And the FT reported previously that Iran attempted to import Tritium during a period when US Intel said they was NO nuclear program – i.e., willing propagandists on this matter.
Personally, one would hope that Iran develops an equivalent deterrent to the genocidal fanatics with nuclear weapons in their neighborhood; and does do in secret, but the FT is dressing up thin gruel as a steak dinner.
Iranian scientists and nuclear experts made a second covert visit to Russia last year,
Given the propensity of Israel to assassinate Iranian researchers, “covert” travel sounds like good sense.
“No free fawking play – then the children’s party ends in chaos”
These people are overthinking it by a country mile. A kid’s party is not so hard. So long as there is no gushing blood or broken bones at the end of the party, then you can call that a win. Just stuff them full of yummy food and cold drinks and you are right. Pro tip. Just before the parents arrive to pick up their kids, you fill those kids up with red drink and have them run around the yard a coupla times.
In Finland the “organized” children’s party generally lasts an hour, two at most and involves first, presents to the birthday person, second, activities (if older, something like bowling, if younger, anything bouncy) and third, finally, food and drinks. During that phases parents will pick kids up. Easy indeed.
Our kids parties lasted at least as twice as long as that but there was only minimal organization around it. We had some activities, then the present opening, then more activities combined with food & drink, then lots of play before the kids got picked up.
I would say that these people are not thinking at all.
I wonder if they’ve considered puting LSD in a punchbowl. That would make one hell of a kid’s party.
Invite the kids (not too many), bake a cake, and let them figure out the rest. It’s their party, not yours.
Also, if the author thinks a bunch of kids in the kitchen playing are the noise equivalent of a Motörhead concert, she went to the wrong Motörhead concert. After the one I saw, I thought I might be Deaf Forever.
But credit for getting the umlaut correct.
The author looks more like a Spın̈al Tap type.
That particular umlaut is sublime.
It goes up to eleven :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx4k83zzc
ok, ya made me look.
In popular culture
The letter is probably best known for its use in the title of the fictional band Spın̈al Tap. Its use there parodies the metal umlaut used gratuitously by several actual bands, such as Blue Öyster Cult, Motörhead, and Mötley Crüe. According to fictional musician David St. Hubbins, “it’s like a pair of eyes; you’re looking at the umlaut, and it’s looking at you”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%CC%88
For those into popular culture, here’s some more :-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to_eleven
Amen. Backyard Olympics and the Treasure Hunt were big hits. Throw up a taco bar and let the big dogs loose and you are all set. You need a person to guard the taco bar. Of course it’s mayhem there are 20 kids running around.
I have a Senior and a Sophomore and their friends still tell me how fun these parties were. It’s all in the preparation.
The latest South Park has me wondering why both Donald & JD don’t sue Matt & Trey for around $10 billion each.
Now if there was any truth to the President and Vice President playing kissy face and more in the White House, that would abrogate things somewhat.
Heh. There is some question in that episode as to whether the Trump/Vance commingling was supposed to be viewed a “real” or as “AI” generated, so maybe that’s their out.
A couple months ago Vance said he was fine with his portrayal in South Park. I wonder if he still thinks so….
And I took the interaction between Kyle and Droopy Dawg, which really pushed a line, as a direct attempt to tick off new boss and ultra-Zionist Larry Ellison. They sure tried to get somebody’s attention with that last episode.
Perhaps we are about to find out if “parody” is the still the cheat code. But if Donald and JD want to go to court and argue that people believe the South Park portrayal, let ’em.
I’ve heard my friends ask the same question, Wuk. My guess is that someone on Trump’s PR team is familiar with the Streisand effect. Going after Matt and Trey would make martyrs of them, and it’s a popularity contest Trump wouldn’t win. I mean, even Jimmy Kimmel’s cancelation generated enough outrage to get reinstated, and I don’t think he’s nearly as popular with the US public at large compared to South Park’s creators.
From Wired magazine:
The Data Center Resistance Has Arrived
A new report finds that local opposition to data centers skyrocketed in the second quarter of this year.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-data-center-resistance-has-arrived/
Montana situation— pretty fresh feed
https://www.msuexponent.com/news/state/atlanta-based-company-withdraws-lease-plans-for-huge-data-center-near-great-falls/article_2e573fcd-fdf5-57b9-a0c1-b5765a8c4437.html
Have you seen the little piggies
Crawling in the dirt?
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in
Have you seen the bigger piggies
In their star spangled lapel pin suits?
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have patriotism to play around in
In their styes with all their backing
They care what goes on around
In his eyes there’s something lacking
What the media needs is a damn good whacking
Everywhere there’s lots of piggies
Living piggy reporter lives
You can see them out asking pertinent questions
About innocent underage lives
Clutching forks and knives to eat the bacon
One more time
Piggies, by the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhY1x8CpWeI&list=RDRhY1x8CpWeI
Nice one, Wuk.
This:
reminded me of this: “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore.”
“Living Backwards”
A highly interesting post this. The bit about getting a job, demanding kickbacks from those below you and kicking some to the guy above you sounded like how they were doing things in the old Ottoman empire. Going by a vague memory, I think that you had to make about six times your official salary to have a comfortable living meaning that five-sixths had to come from ordinary people below you.
As for ‘It’s otherwise impossible, for example, to understand how Keir Starmer could be Prime Minister of Britain.’, I remain firmly convinced that over the decades that he was groomed and then selected to be the Prime Minister by those who have true power in the UK. How else to explain the string of personal failures that became Prime Ministers over the past decade. At this point, Jim Hacker would be seen as an improvement.
Mearsheimer’s Ukraine article spends much time debunking the idea of Russian expansionism — yay! — but spends no time considering the motives for NATO expansionism. Thus there is much about Russian “red lines” but nothing about the NATO’s interest in the erosion of the Russian state into a cabal of oligarchs willing to turn Russia into a gas station without nukes. I imagine this is what gets his articles accepted at the American Conservative. It amazes me how he is regarded as a clear-eyed realist when his work is so skewed by his elision of the question of NATO imperialism.
Somewhere in this there’s an analogy with the tendency, often properly criticized here, to affirm the idea of a Green New Deal without admitting the necessity of degrowth. Euroelites will never acknowledge that a solution to the “Russia problem” lay in giving up their bets on a strategy of bringing about a comprador Russian regime and settling for, to put it simply, a Nordstrom-dependent economy that required congenial relations with an independent but market-oriented Russia.. The US will never acknowledge that it would not tolerate a Europe economically-integrated with Russia. Mearsheimer’s analysis holds back from recognizing that a relatively stable integration of a EuroRussian economic order was possible, which would have spared us all the current descent into slaughter and remilitarization. His realism stops at the point where he might prescribe resignation to stable multipolarity based on economic power, instead of one in which Euroelites and the US are running a dangerously unstable crapgame, trying for the big score.
Sheesh. Nordstream, not Nordstrom. Another humbling marketing achievement.
Yes. I do appreciate Mearsheimer’s commentaries, given the limitations of a noted mainstream academic “realist” writing in the US. They are certainly more accurate and informative than the usual mainstream tripe. But it really irks me when this conflict is treated like some accident by well-intentioned but incompetent or overly-paranoid officials. Mearsheimer rightly notes the sane voices in the foreign policy Establishment who have warned about NATO expansion since the 1990s. What he does not acknowledge is that others in this Establishment have always intended this a part of a project to permanently Balkanize Russia, open it up for looting by the West, and insure it could never again threaten US hegemony. Though falling short of that goal, the first step in provoking Russian actions in Ukraine was clearly to severe the growing economic ties between Russia and Europe that promised to benefit both. In that the US/NATO project has been quite successful.
Not only were there plenty of sane voices pointing out the dangers of NATO expansion among US officials, there were also many European leaders who recognized the benefits of expanded and mutually beneficial economic relations with Russia. As in the US, these leaders were swept aside and replaced by the current crop of insane neocons whose policies transparently threaten to destroy Europe. Understanding how that was accomplished so thoroughly and so quickly is crucial in my view.
No need for more explaining that just the US/NATO could do it. And the obvious reasons are there:
– making Russia prostrate again like in the 1990s, and opening its resources for the plunder
– finally reducing Russian military capabilities, especially strategic ones and bring back the total sense of impunity at the cube power of the unipolar moment.
The point in John Mearsheimer’s article which interested me was: “All of this is to say that, absent the American pacifier, not only does NATO as we know it disappear, but the EU will also be undermined in serious ways”.
The EU will certainly be undermined along with the politicians and parties associated with the EU, but Europe will be strengthened. Europe’s sovereign nations will have the ability to come to terms with multipolarity and reach appropriate and acceptable agreements, formal and informal, governing relations between their country and Russia, China, India, etc, as well as each other.
Fundamentally, it might well take several generations for Russia to come to any understanding that will improve the lot of Europeans as long as the EU exists, but individual states with new and rather more sensible leaders than we have since the end of les Trente Glorieuses and the withering away of serious politicians who experienced the hardships and political upheavals of the twenties and thirties and the war years and their replacement by the fluffheaded, finger in the wind and hand in the till, lightweights who drifted into politics a few years after leving university as a straightforward career move, and nothing more.
There are certainly many serious, committed politicians of left and right beginning to emerge throughout Western Europe as the old party structures break down and their minds will be formed by the collapse of the North African states, the consequences for Europeans of America’s forever war, the Palestinian genocide and the sad, sorry state of a failed Ukrainian rump state engaged in a civil war and spordic conflicts with its European neighbours, and the degradation and humiliation of a debt-ridden, defeated Europe suffering from de-industrialisation, capital flight and unemployment whilst experiencing rapidly changing and unpredictable climates year on year. And then things might get a little better year by year for our people. Hopefully.
Re: MTG
It’s over for Trump. The same way I knew for certain that Trump had it in the bag after the shooting, I’m getting strong “Trump is fcked” vibes.
Is it normal in the US for a sitting President to try to have members of his own political party be defeated at the polls? MTG and Massie are both Republicans after all.
I can’t recall anything like it. There were a few House “Blue Dog” Democrats who voted to impeach Slick Willie, but I don’t remember any retribution tour.
It strikes me that the wise thing for Mike Johnson to do would be to play peacemaker, for the sake of the party. But this is Ye Olde Swamp stooge Mike we’re talkin’ about.
Yes, it’s a page out of team blue’s playbook. Toe the Zionist line or get primaried by the DNC. Interestingly, this strategy is beginning to be successfully turned against the Ds.
Yep, you can see how they took out sone of the progressive wing of that party last Fall with it. There were large numbers of dollars put out by Pro Israel organizations against Boeman and Bush.
Re MTG….
Trump is no MAGA!
Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned against right-wing Senate Democrats in 1938. It did not go well for me.
I am getting the same vibes as when I knew My Kevin (since ’07) was finished as Speaker of the House and soon after, politics.
In 17 years of being my Congressman, he never bothered showing up in Tiny Town. In stark contrast a fortnight ago I was seated in our Memorial Building for a presentation on the Hmong buried in our cemetery, when the County Supervisor Eddie Valero shows up and sits next to me and greets me by name.
…as much as i’d like to see Trump run out of town on a rail
a visual:
Run Out On A Rail
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMFWqh6oHx0
All I got out of getting rid of McCarthyism was Mikenocchio, one of the most egregious evangs imaginable.
Not saying we should keep the devil we know, but President by Silicon Valley committee scares the bejesus out of me.
If Trump is phkt, with just the next rough beast, whether it be D or R, slouching toward the White House to look forward to, there’s not much to celebrate. In this regard, I think today’s linked offering from Aurelien, Living Backwards, is particularly on point.
If anything, the thing about Trump, which by turns is both abhorrent and refreshing, is that he is inclined to blurt the quiet part out loud, and at least some transactions previously conducted under the table by all manner of political elites are now done on top of it for all to see.
Its funny, just say 30 years ago somebody running for political office could be stifled by having smoked marijuana or having somebody in their employ that was undocumented. Innocent times indeed.
We find out what a vipers nest of powerful men (Ghislaine seems to be the only woman of legal age ever talked about in the Epstein gig) were involved and you’d think at least one of them would have been so abhorred by what he saw that he’d spill the beans on the whole affair, but that didn’t seem to happen.
When it comes to sex between consenting peers, as in some of the politically damaging sex scandals of old, I’m with Dorothy Sayers:
But this whole dreadful Epstein thing is important not only in that it is criminal in and of itself but also in that it mirrors the general attitude of today’s elites toward the citizenry at large.
And what the money connections funded are also of particular importance.
Trump is actually making MTG look statesmanlike, which I wouldn’t have believed possible.
“Scoop: U.S. secretly drafting new plan to end Ukraine war”
I doubt that it will happen. Trump’s team came up with a plan that they took to Alaska where Putin looked favourably on it. But after Alaska the Russians heard nothing but radio silence until a coupla months later Trump rejected his own plan. He did the exact same in the Middle East too. It is not a coincidence where the talk of a peace plan comes up after the Russia captured Pokrovsk and are on the verge of capturing a whole series of fortified towns as well. Trump thought that he could use the 25% of the Donbass still occupied by the Ukrainians as leverage over the Russians but that “leverage” is rapidly going away.
It’s not meant to happen. Trump is all about the journey not the destination, aka.
kicking the can down the road.
New shiny thing to distract from genocide, Epstein and the increasingly apparent connections between the two and all of Trumps constituents, I mean donors.
AI and Data Centers–
Here’s a good short documentary video about West Virginia’s embrace of data centers and the impacts and reactions of local communities. Why WVa? Part of it is the slavish behavior of the state government for the sake of “jawbs,” a selling point the local in the video see through immediately. But let’s not kid ourselves. The plan is to power these with coal power plants.
Let’s hope that the amazing Tweet about CoreWeave’s shaky finances prefigures a big time crash of the insane AI Wars before we’re all living like that poor Indian women in the Guardian story.
Thank you, Yves.
Further to the Aurelien link, just one quibble with the bit about liberals being nice to animals. The liberals killed Rinka. Don’t vote liberal.
Do parrots return their shopping carts?
kinda hard without opposable thumbs, so I give them a pass. lmao
Polly want a jalapeno?
Polly want a discount.
Do not ask me why – but shopping carts are a popular toy for cage birds. Search YouTube if you need a mental health break.
They also have opposable feets. If you give a parrot a peanut, they will lay on their back, hold it with their feet, and shell it with their beak.
Pretty dexterous for a creature with no hands!
I’ll admit to being a little verklempt by Klimt fetching almost a quarter billion in long green at auction.
You could make a faithfully perfect looking digital version of it for $25 that would look like the real thing from 25 feet away.
“Cranky New Book:” The Atlantic’s surprisingly open-minded take on Kingsnorth’s call to arms against The Machine–
The reviewer does his best to reduce Kingsnorth’s book to a collection of ideas for virtue-signaling, a very Atlantic-friendly way of approaching the threat of The Machine, but Kingsnorth is arguing for much more. I linked this yesterday as a companion piece to Ross Douthat’s interview of Thiel, but I’ll link Douthat’s interview of Kingsnorth again as a supplement to this book review.
As Kingsnorth is anxious to point out, he didn’t originate this idea of The Machine. The idea tracks from Mary Shelley through Aldous Huxley and beyond. And Kingsnorth is not alone in arguing that we have been captured by more than a set of sociopathic elites. Nate Hagens talks about the Superorganism, and Daniel Schmactenberger about Moloch. I think all these folks try to remind us that over-personalizing our predicament by directing all our ire against the TechBros and the rest is something of a dead-end. They’re the product of a system, as are we. They all also point out that there is no way out but through. The question becomes what do we hold onto, and what ideas and attitudes do we try to make sure do not survive the harms times ahead.
long before Hagens and Schmactenberger were Ellul and Illich. They saw all of this and finally despaired of any grand solution
It becomes easier to understand these troubles when you can find nations that don’t have them. We are trapped in a way of life that rewards selfish and greedy people — and it turns out this is normal in any society with a ruling class. Societies without a ruling class don’t have this problem. The free book The Deepest Revolution offers many examples of healthy nations without ruling classes, where leaders actually serve the people and people share as a way of life and live in alignment with the Earth. These healthy nations show that any society with a ruling class is a slave society, whether you’re a wage slave, chattel slave, or other kind. So long as we have a ruling class, our politics will be ineffective and our elections will never change anything important.
There are people who’ve gotten themselves out of this trap – who’ve lived in a society with endless corruption like we have, but then had a revolution that didn’t just swap out one ruling class for another. Instead they created a way of life without any ruling class at all, where integrity and generosity are normal. I believe that’s what the deepest revolution would be like, and the book offers stories from others who have done it and proven it’s possible.
Leavitt to Believer
In this week’s episode the whole country is relieved when Karoline informs them that the Epstein Files are a Democrat Hoax, and nothing to do with Lumpy Rutherford, or what some are calling the Chief Executive now.
I am always surprised that people like the residents of Edgemont turn down taxpayer funded offers to relocate them. People whose lives and property are sitting a few feet above sea level are not going to experience a good outcome over the next few decades. It may be easy for me to say this as someone who will not be facing this decision, but I honestly don’t see an alternative.
There have been plenty of cases where government efforts to build a new city from the ground up have been performed in the past, and have been successful. I don’t see any reason to think that these efforts will not work just fine, or to think that any of the alternatives are better. Of course it’s disruptive to move yourself and your family somewhere else, but we have all done it at some point, either for a new job or for other comparatively minor reasons; far from being the end of the world, there are usually many things to like about it. I have moved my whole family four times in the last 20 years, and we are still doing fine. People in the military make long moves every few years or whatever, and that’s just for the sake of a job.
It’s clear that the only viable strategy for dealing with sea level rise is to relocate the people and facilities in flood prone areas. This is well within our competence, and is something we could start on tomorrow with the stroke of a pen. I don’t see the need for tremendous drama about it. Hopefully we can all just get used to the idea.
When the war on those harboring vital information took place early on with DOGE doing their worst, a number of important people here in Sequoia NP with sophisticated knowledge of such things as a doctorate in trees with a specialty in Giant Sequoias, felt it was better to take the buyout offer-as they were dead to them occupations. Why wait and get the ax when they’re throwing bennies your way, and you’re in your late 50’s, no spring chicken.
So, you get rid of 500 science’y jobs in the National Parks and what do you replace them with?
500 law enforcement officers~
Oh, and 2/3rds of them will ensconced in just 3 cities, what’s up with that?
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2025/11/update-national-park-service-will-recruit-500-law-enforcement-officers
That sounds ridiculous but when you think about it, it fits the Trump regime’s idea of replacing professionals with amateurs. Did notice this little tidbit from that article-
‘However, there is no requirement that the officers, once they complete their NPS training, must remain with the park that paid for that training’
Saywhatnow?
In NPS culture, to move up you have to work at a number of National Parks. Friends that worked here up and split for Channel Islands NP last year, that sort of thing.
They don’t want them to to leave SF/DC/NYC because you probably can’t survive on NPS law enforcement pay there.
And how many do you need for the Presidio or Statue of Liberty anyhow?
Rampant AI demand throws the memory chip market into turmoil
Price history for for some bog-standard DDR5 ram modules:
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3L9wrH/crucial-pro-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr5-5600-cl46-memory-cp2k16g56c46u5
Our dear Yves laments that she lost her rhythm during the Cloudflare outage.An antidote:https://open.spotify.com/track/0U2Syk5F1F5L5JEThoLmom?si=0ec9905c74ed48fd Caution, this musician has been accused of channeling Jimi Hendrix! LOL ;-}
What a time to be alive!
Fans to the left of me, fans to the right and fans straight ahead, with the air full of poop.
I predict a spectacular last few Months for 2025.
Old quip said whilst driving and someone giving directions says ‘go straight’. I would amend with adding left and right.
“Never go straight …. Go forward”.
Too which I would add … if one finds themselves in one of those 3 camps … one is being led …
Apropos of nothing, but your comment triggered an old memory…
When I was growing up in central Mississippi, we had a local TV personality named Jobie Martin “The Loud Mouth of the South” a local DJ and personality who hosted a live-on-the-air late Saturday morning variety show (circa 1970-74 IIRC) with national and local musical talent and a dance floor. He also interviewed national and local celebrities and community leaders on live TV. Guests included Muhammad Ali, Mahalia Jackson, James Earl Jones, Nat King Cole, and Bill Cosby. He owned a restaurant that sold the best fried chicken you could get. His show was the first African American hosted commercial paid television show in Mississippi.
He signed off his TV show with different slogans from time to time, but one of his recurring sign-offs, my favorite, was “Remember — even if you fall —fall STRAIGHT-AHEAD!”
By all accounts he was a good man, and deserves to be remembered….
https://mississippimoments.org/msm-558-jobie-martin-straight-ahead
https://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2011/html/HC/HC0147IN.htm
“Mr. Market Is Having a Sad” always makes me chuckle as a section heading. Mish’s technical analysis comes with the caveat that he doesn’t really know when it is going to happen. His observations of the VIX and forums say things are very bubbalicious. This is different from my readings and my personalized YouTube algorithm shows wonky channels lamenting the coming liquidity crisis.
As always, the market can remain irrational much longer than you can remain solvent.
The sheriff in the Napolitano clip was stellar. I usually hate watching videos but I wish he could’ve gone on for another hour.
Edit – Sincere apologies, this was supposed to be a separate comment, not a reply to Retaj.
More apologies, and YES, that was an amazing interview.
Hathaway has the best video presentation I have seen in months. Thank you!
Re: Trump authorizes CIA to prepare plans for covert operations in Venezuela
I find this headline amusing for a number of reasons. One: we’re supposed to believe this isn’t happening already? Two: If it’s meant to be covert, is announcing it in national media really the best way to start?
I’m reminded of John Bolton making a similar public announcement about covert ops, causing them to be abruptly terminated as the agents in question were arrested.
We’re supposed to believe that CIA needs Trump’s authorization for anything?
It’s a covering action for embedded assets.
Israel v. The Resistance
https://forward.com/culture/784672/grok-hebrew-translation-x-conspiracy-theory/
I’m not twittter-literate and did not dive much deeper than the linked article.
PIGGIES (apologies to the Beatles)
Have you seen the MAGAT piggies
Crawling in the dirt?
And for all the MAGAT piggies
Life is getting worse,
Always having hate to play around in
Have you seen the GOPiggies
In their starched white shirts?
You will find the GOPiggies
Fuck children in the dirt,
Always have clean shirts to wipe off virgin blood
In the styes built by their backers
They don’t care what goes on around
In their eyes there’s something lacking
What they need’s a damn good whacking
Everywhere there’s GOPiggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their dyed-blonde wives
Clutching spoons to sup the bacon-grease
One more time