Welcoming the Wolf at the Door Barn Raiser
Climate/Environment
Profitable Poisons Climate & Capitalism
This engineered fungus cuts emissions and tastes like meat ScienceDaily
Not to mention that part of the logic of cultured meat (besides reducing methane) is to conserve land by more efficiently converting crops to meat than livestock. It does this by replacing many of the metabolic functions of the livestock with exosomatic energy use.
— george elliot (@GeorgeE33179) November 30, 2025
Japan oysters dying ‘en masse’, likely due to warmer sea, say officials Straits Times
Water
Water-pocalyse in parts of Asia: Why are floods that claimed 900 lives so deadly? Firstpost
Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown The Guardian
Drought Emergency Declared for Athens Region; State Fast-Tracks Vital Water Projects iefimerida
Pandemics
Our Culture of Coerced Infection The View from the Wayside
Long COVID takes $1 trillion global economic toll each year, analysis suggests CIDRAP
Demanding more of public health Briarpatch
Japan
Einar Tangen: The U.S. Instigates Japan-China Conflict Glenn Diesen (Video)
China?
Hong Kong acts to quell anger after deadly building blaze Straits Times
Hong Kong is China’s most underestimated strategic asset Asia Times
***
China’s factory activity unexpectedly contracts in November, missing estimates, private survey shows CNBC
Macartney 2.0? China’s Economic Structure, Trade Patterns and Western Mercantilist Simulacra Warwick Powell
Beijing flags Malaysia–US trade pact, urges Kuala Lumpur to re-examine priorities Intellinews
India
How CIA Secretly Triggered Sino-Indian War Kit Klarenberg
Indian outreach to Taliban is ratcheting up Afghan-Pakistani tensions WaPo
HANG TOGETHER, HANG SEPARATELY – PUTIN AND MODI TAKE THE BEN FRANKLIN LINE John Helmer
Syraqistan
AI-powered surveillance firms are gunning for a share of the Gaza spoils +972 Magazine
Brothers, 8 and 11, killed in south Gaza strike; IDF: ‘Suspects’ crossed Yellow Line Times of Israel
Trump’s Gaza ‘stabilisation force’ under threat as states reconsider involvement New Arab
Ben-Gvir Promotes Officer Whose Soldiers Shot Dead Surrendered Palestinians Haaretz
Netanyahu turns to Israel’s president for pardon in corruption cases The Cradle
US asks Lebanon to return undetonated GBU-39 bomb used by IAF, fearing it could reach Russia, China Jerusalem Post
Africa
Guinea-Bissau army head elbows in The Continent
Exclusive: The first proof of the use of chemical weapons in Sudan’s civil war France24. Commentary:
🚨 SUDAN CHEMICAL WEAPONS CLAIM – France24 just dropped a “major investigation” saying SAF used chlorine barrel bombs north of Khartoum in Sept 2024.
Key points the report didn’t mention:
•Sudanese Ministry of Health released a full public report in September 2025 after… pic.twitter.com/VGUzLWIySM
— Amadeus Cush⚜️ (@BurkeanRealist) November 29, 2025
O Canada
Canada pursues Gulf markets as its weapons fuel war in Sudan Canadian Dimension
Canada’s feminist foreign aid in action in Ukraine Canadian Affairs
Old Blighty
Cuts to insulation scheme will leave homes cold over winter, experts say The Guardian
European Disunion
Tens of thousands protest as far-right AfD forms new youth group DPA vs. Antifa agitation turns violent in Germany, bolstering Trump administration’s foreign terror label Fox News
Poland’s President Nawrocki cancels Orbán meeting after Hungarian PM’s Putin visit Notes from Poland
New Not-So-Cold War
Yermak down? Events in Ukraine
General Zaluzhnyi attacks Zelenskiy’s administration in apparent bid for the presidency Intellinews. When you’ve lost Lindsey…
I read with great interest former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi’s opinion piece about the history of the Ukrainian conflict and the way forward.
The summary of the history of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine was spot on and the…
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) November 30, 2025
Russia is Moving Much Faster than US Military Experts Claim… Who Could Have Predicted That? Larry Johnson
Ukraine’s been retreating all year. US wants a temporary freeze to save its asset and block Russia. The Ukrainian elite are wary, fearing the loss of endless funds. Negotiations are about “securing the bag”, but the bag’s shrinking, so dead weight like Mindich & Yermak gets cut.
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) November 30, 2025
Make Money Not War: Trump’s Real Plan for Peace in Ukraine WSJ
Going on the ‘Offensive’ Against Russia: Desperate Europe Dreams of Changing Calculus of Its Decline Simplicius
Energy Engagement
Shadow Fleet Crisis Deepens: Third Tanker Incident off Senegal Follows Black Sea Drone Strikes gCaptain
Kazakhstan Tells Ukraine To Stop Attacking Terminal After Oil Exports Halted Reuters
Iran says it captured Eswatini-flagged tanker in Strait of Hormuz Middle East Eye
Chinese oil imports boom, with giant volumes going to strategic reserves. How much? Nobody knows. Kevin Walmsley
A German court may have just shattered one of the Biden era’s biggest lies Jonathan Turley, The Hill
South of the Border
Lawmakers raise alarms about possible war crimes after second boat strike report The Hill
Trump Downplays Venezuelan Airspace Threat As US Mulls New Steps Bloomberg
US gave Venezuela’s Maduro chance to leave country: senator AFP
***
Milei challenges Argentina’s longstanding human rights policies Buenos Aires Times
Milei launches ‘Isaac Accords’ to expand Israeli influence in Latin America The Cradle
***
The Angry Tide of the Latin American far right Countercurrents
Honduran Electoral Council Publishes Partial Results as President Castro Warns of Irregularities TeleSur
WHAT HONDURAS’S ELECTION MEANS FOR PRÓSPERA, A BILLIONAIRE UTOPIA Nacla
Turkiye
PKK urges Turkey to free Ocalan, warns peace process will halt France24
Trump 2.0
Silicon Valley’s Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends New York Times. Shocker.
Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence New York Times
Spook Country
How the CIA Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Partisanship The After-Action Report
False Flag Watch
Why the Washington DC Shooting Looks Like a False Flag Countercurrents
Imperial Collapse Watch
Blowback, Boomerangs, and the Imperial Doom Loop Un-Diplomatic
Isn’t one of the most obvious features of China’s success that it’s built on capacity to discipline its capitalist firms – including the “inevitable chiselers in their ranks.” Brings to mind this observation from FDR, seemingly lost to Western posterity. https://t.co/IAzOdHlbtK https://t.co/8QCfeZHE3q pic.twitter.com/U8GJ4SoOpA
— Nikhil Pal Singh (@nikhil_palsingh) November 30, 2025
Poetic Justice – China’s Deindustrialization That Never Came — And Why the West Can No Longer Sell to China
A response to @RobinBHarding article “China is making trade impossible”
For years, Western analysts warned of China’s impending “deindustrialization.” (collapse). It was… https://t.co/arMdgd38f6
— America-China Watcher (@PandemicTruther) November 29, 2025
Private Chinese company rolls out Mach 7 hypersonic missile at nearly 90% lower cost Interesting Engineering
The Bezzle
$25B crypto lending market now led by ‘transparent’ players: Galaxy Coin Telegraph
Crypto’s Most Trusted Stablecoin Given Lowest Possible ‘Weak’ Rating By Major TradFi Agency Gizmodo
The Tether folks are in the early innings of running a massive interest rate trade. How I read this audit is they think the Fed will cut rates which crushes their interest income. In response, they are buying gold and $BTC that should in theory moon as the price of money falls.… pic.twitter.com/ZGhQRP4SVF
— Arthur Hayes (@CryptoHayes) November 29, 2025
BRICS
How Resilient is BRICS in the Storm of Geopolitics? – Part 2 Peter Hanseler (Part 1)
BRICS and Nuclear War Julian MacFarlane
Airbus Software Situation
How Solar Flares Could Have Corrupted An Airbus Plane Gizmodo
Antitrust
Monopoly Round-Up: Is Biden’s One Good Achievement – Antitrust – Still Intact? Matt Stoller
Letting Facebook off the hook (and Google too) Zephyr Teachout
Thanksgiving Leftovers
Indian Head Penny — A Thanksgiving Story Enlightened Omnivore
Class Warfare
Heaven bless the retail worker Gwen Frisbie-Fulton
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Poland’s President Nawrocki cancels Orbán meeting after Hungarian PM’s Putin visit”
A lot of EU leaders have their knickers in a twist because Orban went to see Putin without getting an EU mandate first or even their permission. Of course if Orban had of asked for permission or some sort of mandate, that it would have been instantly refused. So Orban said bugger it, I’m going. Orban has actually been accused of not being a team player but considering the fact that Team EU has become a bunch of hopeless losers, I guess that he is waiting for these governments to eventually fall one after another and hopefully be replaced by governments that are a bit more reasonable.
US Navy Commodire Potter: “It is better to ask forgiveness than permission”.
Not sure Orban needs forgiveness from the EU cabal.
Killing on the High Seas.
This is not a set of war crimes.
We are not at war.
War crimes can be seen in the context of war, not forgivable, but in some way understandable in the setting in which they take place.
We are not at war.
This is premeditated murder, everyone involved from the top to the bottom is a murderer.
“Antifa agitation turns violent in Germany, bolstering Trump administration’s foreign terror label Fox News”
IMO, this headline has as just as much meaning if you substituted “Keebler Elves” for Antifa.
It must be…the Furries! Aren’t they on Trump’s list of terrists? Right-wing media certainly portrays them as a dire threat to “our values”. Yes, “Furry agitation turns violent in Germany” has a nice ring to it.
“US gave Venezuela’s Maduro chance to leave country: senator”
Yeah, if I was Maduro I would give that idea a bit of a miss. Going by what Trump has done over the past several months, he would either have the plane carrying Maduro out of Venezuela shot down or else he would have it forced to land at a place where Maduro could be arrested, sent to the US in chains for a show trial and then sent to a federal penitentiary for life. Is there a country left in the world that would trust a Trump promise? Especially if it could have lethal consequences? And even if Maduro left the country the US would probably still attack the country to take it over. Why? Because oils well that ends well.
I recommend Welcoming the Wolf at the Door. An excellent article about remarkable animals.
I note an important aspect of wolves from the photos in the article and from the photo that Conor Gallagher posts as an antidote. It isn’t just the big, well-functioning, wolfy nose. Those eyes. According to some legends, the eyes of the wolf are human. That’s what terrorizes those brave, brave feds mentioned in the article, who slaughtered the wolf pups in Iowa. (An action like uprooting olive trees — I detect a trend.)
Those eyes. Wouldn’t want the “wolf gaze” upon us, now would we?
[Here in the Undisclosed Region, there are a good number of wily Italian wolves about: Rumor has it that they sometimes wander into the hilly eastern part of the city, where there are many substantial houses on separate lots. The wolves must be looking for an Agnelli to eat.]
Sorry: Idaho.
Later that year, [2021] federal agents killed eight pups in their den in Idaho, alarming students at a nearby high school, the Washington Post reported. Studying the local wolf pack had been part of the school’s curriculum for 20 years. “The pups didn’t do anything,” a shocked student told the newspaper.
In BC, our government has been shooting hundreds of wolves a year from helicopters. They shot some in the provincial park near where I live. We heard the survivors mourning for days. So deeply sad.
That was a couple years ago. Haven’t heard a wolf since then. We used to hear them regularly.
https://thefurbearers.com/blog/bc-wolf-cull-reaches-second-highest-total-362-wolves-killed/
They say it’s to protect the caribou, but we all know that the logging industry keeps destroying the old forests covered in lichens that the caribou eat. Wolves – in European tradition – are the scapegoat.
You’re right about those eyes. They do seem human like when you look at them. And that was a good article on wolves. Not sure why but in the US it seems that Republicans have a hatred of wolves and when in power enact laws to go after them like Trump is trying to do. Maybe it is the rancher base that is afraid that a wolf might kill and eat one of their herd when in fact wolves would led to a healthier ecosystem for where they live. At this point I am reminded of those farmers – true story – who chop down every tree adjoining their crops because the shadows that those trees would have fall on those crops would take something away from their growth. Frankly it would be nice to listen to a wolf howl in the evening and I know that in the US trips are organized to go to areas to do just that.
I’ve heard that spooky howl when camping near the Tetons.
Of course wolf fear is deeply ingrained in European culture. It’s not just US cattle barons. And wolves are less adapted to humans and can be eradicated. One reason coyotes have thrived is because their enemies the wolves have been suppressed.
“Frankly it would be nice to listen to a wolf howl in the evening and I know that in the US trips are organized to go to areas to do just that.”
I’ve seen grown men and women tear up, and one particularly memorable old fellow who came all the way from Japan dance a happy jig upon hearing wolve howl during the crepuscular hours in Yellowstone.
The southernmost pack of wolves in Cali are about 40 miles away as the howl goes, named Yowlumni (we aren’t related aside from suffix) and discovered a few years ago…
https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/california-wolf-pack-named-for-yowlumni-band-of-tule-river-yokuts-tribe-2023-12-15/
I attended an interesting presentation by Chris Sverheen (grizzlies) and Doug Smith (wolves), both recently retired biologists, regarding the future of wolves and grizzlies in the rockies. Pretty obvious point is that the wolves have greater recruitment and fecundity with their reproduction than grizzlies, so it is hardly an apples-to apples management conundrum.
Bottom line– humans are the bane on the face of the earth. Here is a great resource and link to many matters in the northern rockies:
https://yellowstonian.org/
I hope the species outlast humans and some remnant populations are able to re-establish after humans have their jackpot.
I was talking to a pal who does snowmaking and grooming at Big Sky, and we were marveling at the implied future stranded capital of second homes and supportive infrastructure at ski areas like Big Sky and so many others all over the world.
Mister Market….
I know I have linked this before, but it’s worth a watch… The Lost People of Mountain Village
https://youtu.be/hzoN2MFkCXI
Here is a video from another Undiscosed Region showing a wolf and a bear, each ignoring the other.
Or, looking for another pair of brothers to become founders of a kingdom?
“Billions Down the Toilet” sounds like an old-fashioned Mob “bust out,” which makes sense when you realize that Donald Trump is perhaps our first fully-mobbed-up president.
Figures. After all, “Don” is a title of respect for a mafia boss. And he sure acts like a mafia boss with his protection rackets, demands for money and hits on people he does not like.
You might be referring to his vexatious lawsuits. They are, in common parlance, called extortion.
Looks like Blackstone and two other PE firms got left holding the bag of “Sh*t” that was USS. Sorry if I’m not crying any tears for for them. I wonder who were the winners that cashed out during the $2.6B exit of company to the new fund investors? No mention of them in the article.
Major financial institutions, including Fortress Investment Group, Ares Management Corp. (NYSE:ARES), and Blackstone Inc. (NYSE:BX), are poised to lose a combined $1.4 billion on an investment in USS
A combined 1.4 billion seems more like they washed their hands than took a bath…and as for billions I think you need at least two for that but that would be merely a couple, and three would only be a few…
“Exclusive: The first proof of the use of chemical weapons in Sudan’s civil war France24.”
Let’s recall that chlorine is NOT a chemical weapon. It doesn’t kill, but makes you sick and go puke, and it’s so slow that you can just walk away from it.
It is indeed possible to kill people with chlorine, but so does a bucketful of water. In both cases you need forced immobilization to get a kill.
Syrian Al-Qaida propaganda all over again.
Among other things, It’ll burn your lungs, causing permanent scarring.
It’s like they are not even trying any more.
Tell that to the WWI soldiers who died of asphyxiation when their lungs were filled with fluid due to chlorine gas poisoning by the Germans. It turns out immobilizing the adversary is a common goal in a battle, enabling the use of weapons that require immobilization. See here: https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/a-brief-history-of-chemical-war/. Yes, phosgene was worse, but chlorine was lethal too.
I have no idea whether chemical weapons were used in Syria, but chlorine is most definitely a chemical weapon.
Note that that article casually states the following:
However, there remain serious doubts about the veracity of that claim; Kit Klarenberg discusses it in this article:
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/09/19/uk-intelligence-syrian-false-flag-chemical-attack/
I have no doubt that that claim is false, jusl like most (if not all) of the war crime claims by the Empire against the designated enemies. What I found worrying, is the ammount of credit that people still give to those.
Chlorine gas is most definitely a chemical weapon.
I inhaled a bit of it in a chemistry lab and more when I was in training in the army. Doesn’t do the eyes much good either. If it is not a chemical weapon, it’s a good imitation. Have a lungful.
Even tear gas is classified as a chemical weapon, even if it’s specifically designed to not cause any permanent harm to the victims.
That said, there is a big difference between the pure chlorine gas of the WW1 fame and the modern hypochlorites used for water treatment. You can kill yourself with that, too, but you have to directly ingest large amounts of it.
Chlorine is not listed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Convention, because it has many peaceful industrial uses. However, its actual use in conflict could be argued to be a violation of Art 8 of the Rome Statute which forbids “employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devices.” The argument, for those who can summon up the interest, is between those who think the Article refers to gases etc that are deliberately intended as weapons, and those that might incidentally be so.
“Why the Washington DC Shooting Looks Like a False Flag”
Is it me or does this article smell either entirely or mainly AI generated to anyone else?
I can’t help but switch either off or to autopilot and skim read once I think something is entirely AI written.
it has a structure to it and sentences that are a very familiar output style. it’s too perfectly organized, too systematically hierarchical, too balanced
e.g.
“But the deeper question is:”
“Trump is facing”
“this attack delivers him” – the perfectly neat 5 bullet points.
and “Conclusion: The Pattern Is the Story” – get any of the large models to do some research for you and this sort of format comes out.
I am going to guess Gemini deep research, or perhaps claude with a list of links, the “script” section AI created, perhaps topped and tailed with handwritten work.
Anyone else see this ?
or am I going mad ? or looked at LLM output too much? (or both!)
I didn’t get that vibe from that link but we’ve gone past the point where one would be irresponsible not to speculate
I just thought it to be b.s.
When I get older losing my fear
Many days from now
Will you still be sending me hosannas
Birthday greetings, a smidgen of whine?
If I’d been up since quarter to three
Would you open up the NC door?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty four?
You’ll be older too
And if you say the word
I could slay with you
I could be handy, mending a ditty
When your mirth has gone
You can hang out by the wi-fi ire side
Watch a democracy go for a ride
Waxing satiric, digging into the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty four?
Every morning we can share silently in gigabytes
If the connection is clear
We shall laugh our days away
Hosts at our needs
Yves, Conor, Haig and more
Send me a response, drop me a line
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away
Give me your answer, fill in the blanks
Mine lyrics forevermore
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I’m sixty four?
Ho!
When i’m 64, by the Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCTunqv1Xt4&list=RDHCTunqv1Xt4
Happy birthday, Wukchumni?
It is approaching as I type, for yours truly and about 20,463,284 others that share a common theme
…zeroing in on my Golden Years now
You get the heavy duty senior citizen discounts starting @ 65, not like when I tried to order from the chintzy over 55 junior-senior discount and they carded me and i’ll always remember the waitress looking at my driver’s license in disgust as I was merely 54 and a half and she demanded I order from the regular menu…
Golden Years, by David Bowie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApHM1ct4tdM&list=RDApHM1ct4tdM
Happy Birthday, Wuk, and thanks for all your ditties that help keep us sane! 64 is still very young! Enjoy!
Thanks for the kudos gras~
Einstein (brains of the outfit) and I are both 12 and a half in cat years, for what it’s worth
If it is really your 64th revolution around our orb, then happy birthday Wuk and have a good one.
Happy Birthday!
Biden era end turley
Sad to see him discuss the nordstream issue, blame it on some poor Ukraine people and never mention that Biden said “he would end nordstream”. And a few times he said it I think.
Yeah, Turley giving credence to the “Ukraine did it” story once again exposes his partisan leanings – apparently the Biden administration’s “big crime” was that they and their CIA knew about it and did nothing – a “LIHOP” conspiracy theory?! Yet Turley is still too much of an Establishment figure (partisan, but still in the club) to venture beyond the Narrative. Blaming Ukraine provides a bit of ammunition to Trump’s weak noises toward negotiation. I noticed that he also specifically named Zaluzhnyi as in charge of the operation – someone who seems to be favored by British and US Atlanticist war-mongers who are resisting Trump’s feeble efforts. I thought that was perhaps noteworthy.
This part was also bothersome to me.
“Ironically, even if we were told about this evidence, the public might still have supported the commitment to Ukraine. After all, Ukraine is the victim of a horrendous invasion that has involved repeated charges of war crimes against the Russian forces.”
Seems that Turley has little understanding of the conflicts causes.
Turley is a Fox Newser in libertarian clothing. He’s party line on Russia and Israel, loves him some second amendment. Threaten any of his rice bowls and his “free speech absolutism” is exposed as a fraud.
Of course he does still score points against the neoliberals in justice seeking clothing of the lawfare crowd.
This is ad hominem. Please do not denigrate the site with Policies-viollating cheap shots.
You forget he was a Democrat for a very long time.
For a long time I read his column every day until he abandoned his “free speech absolutism” when it came to those protesting genocide. It’s because I’ve read so much of his stuff that I make the assertions that I do.
That is doubling down on your ad hom. You need to address his argument in the linked piece.
Sorry. I was responding to Jhallc and his quote from the article. His comment was
“Seems that Turley has little understanding of the conflicts causes.”
I’ll concede that claiming all this is about rice bowls is an ad hominem but in the scope of my reading Turley has never met Palestinian free speech that he cares to defend and mostly ignores or defends the egregious examples of pro Israeli censorship.
To be sure I no longer read his column so perhaps there are examples. But he is constantly claiming himself to be a free speech absolutist and IMO the genocide protests are the free speech issue of our time.
The point is to utterly erase Seymour Hersh’s reporting on the issue.
That part of history is not allowed to be accessed/retold. Sorry. Confusion about what happened is a feature.
‘America-China Watcher
@PandemicTruther
Poetic Justice – China’s Deindustrialization That Never Came — And Why the West Can No Longer Sell to China’
Actually the entire thread is worth reading-
https://xcancel.com/PandemicTruther/status/1994675676448788612
They took a look at the real time attacks on Russia economically, said nope, and then sought to make their country an autarky as well as they know that the west will be coming after them as soon as the war in the Ukraine winds down. But again, the entire thread is worth reading as it covers a lot of territory.
Thanks for the link. Another encouraging indication of growing dissatisfaction of various nations with the inequities and uncertainties of the neoliberal globalization development model.
If one gives substantial credence to the theory that “civilization is only nine meals away from anarchy”, it would seem wise look to a country’s self sufficiency in food production as one of the essential factors in gauging its ability to achieve autarky while ensuring citizen wellbeing.
China’s grand plan for food self-sufficiency Asia Times
“Beijing flags Malaysia–US trade pact, urges Kuala Lumpur to re-examine priorities”
Malaysia really screwed up here. They banned the exports of their rare earths and had made a deal where China would bring in equipment and technology to refine those rare earths. But under this US deal, the US would have first dibs on any produced rare earths, not China. Worse still-
‘Malaysia may be legally obligated to seize Chinese equipment and technology in Malaysia, and hand it over to American companies, if similar policies are enacted in the United States to require that.’
https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/that-didnt-take-long-trumps-trade
No wonder the Chinese are demanding clarifications before they sink any money into Malaysia.
Malaysia exports nearly the same value of trade to China as the US, FWIW (unlike Thailand, where the level of exports to the US is ~50% larger). So not clear why they were so easily cowed. But flip side is US and China are nearly tied as top export destinations.
The Tin Bubble perpetrated by the Malaysian Government in the 1980’s was one hell of a bubble, unknown to most.
Think Hunt Brothers, but with base metal.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/11/11/Malaysia-admits-1982-tin-market-tampering/4824532069200/
Bilateral trade only tells a small part of the story. Malaysia is deeply inbedded in the chain of electronic goods between Japan, Taiwan, ROK and other ASEAN countries (mostly as a mid-tier assembler of consumer products) with the West and wealthier Asian countries as the final buyers. While Malaysia does sell electronics (mostly chips) to China, they are mostly a supplier of petroleum products and agricultural goods. So in totality, keeping in with the US is far more important to their economy. Malaysia, like most Asian countries, is also suffering its own China shock, as exported Chinese deflation is wrecking havoc on domestic companies.
My main concern would be how it affects their solar industry. Solar PV production there is somewhere around 10% of their total trade surplus. A lot of that is because of Chinese investment.
“Shadow Fleet Crisis Deepens: Third Tanker Incident off Senegal Follows Black Sea Drone Strikes”
Nice how this article blames the Russians for the temerity of being attacked-
‘The incidents underscore escalating concerns about vessels operating outside standard maritime oversight, with the three separate tanker emergencies within days highlighting both the geopolitical tensions surrounding Russian oil exports and the inherent risks posed by aging, poorly maintained vessels in the shadow fleet.’
But I for one do not believe that it was really the Ukrainians that attacked that vessel of the African coast. MI6 maybe? Whoever. This is the west announcing that they are going to hunt down and sink Russia’s shadow fleet aka ships not insured in the UK with firms like Lloyds. You can bet that the Russians will retaliate and it will not be good. It was bad enough when Biden blew up international infrastructure in the form of NS2 but now that you are talking about commercial shipping and pumping stations. This could lead to an international sabotage campaign by both sides which only a maniac would want – or a UK/EU leader. What’s next? Cruise liners and commercial aviation?
The Russians are not forcing anyone to cause explosions on their tankers. When and how will the retaliation begin? There is no cloak of impunity.
“All ships insured by London will be removed from the official target list and no coordinates/navigation support will be provided…. “
Per the imperial officer in charge of double tap operations.
Suppose someone decides tankers off Malaysia can be droned?
“What’s next? Cruise liners and commercial aviation?”
Good point.
They´re now burning all the bridges left for the following generations.
It´s insane and shameful and infuriating.
If someone does not understand any of the genocides of the colonial history since the 15th century, “open your eyes and look around you. Nothing has changed.” – except that the formerly colonized now got the bigger guns.
Maybe they will forgive. But nobody can forget this pile of lies, deception, violence, arrogance, pure evil hypocrisy.
From Our Culture of Coerced Infection
The American healthcare system is its own form of violence; and not just financial violence.
As I’ve said for years as well.
I wonder in this climate if we ever would have gotten indoor plumbing?
Interesting question. Even with tax incentives for improved ventilation systems, if there were sales pitches and advertising for updating buildings for health and safety, I didn’t see them.
“Modernizing” in the sense of completely changing interior style and moving walls around, that is always being marketed. And I’ve never been through one that anyone liked.
My office updated right away. And from what I can tell based on the number of people around and AirNet readings, my dentist’s building also redid their HVAC systems to clean the air. The tenants are mostly finance and funds and some real estate.
That said, hot and cold running water is an easy sale. Flush toilets!
re: Gaza, 2 young boys killed, IDF says the boys crossed the yellow line.
About that yellow line, from Caitlin Johnstone:
Israel Moved Gaza’s Yellow Line And Then Shelled Palestinians For Being On The Wrong Side
They just keep finding new ways to carve off more pieces of Gaza and murder more Palestinians.
https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/11/22/israel-moved-gazas-yellow-line-and-then-shelled-palestinians-for-being-on-the-wrong-side/
In school, a mate and I got into a bit of trouble by running over a teacher’s imaginary line at playtime. At least they didn’t shoot us dead.
Judge Napolitano and former CIA Phil Giraldi talking about spy Pollard and Ambassador Huckabee. utube, ~25+ minutes.
FMR. CIA – Phil Giraldi : Israel First Policy Will Ruin the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp8FOSZC8SE
It’s good that he’s making a stink about this.
Hilarious that the US wants their bomb back after allowing Israel to use it against Lebanon. They must fear the Russians will display it in that museum where they have Abrams tanks and other war losing US tech.
I know, the chutzpah, it burns.
I wonder if RF could improve on the U.S. GBU…
Their version seems quite usable
Russian stuff is already top of the line in range, accuracy, and jamming resistance. The main use they may have from this one is improving ways of countering it.
Indian Head Penny — A Thanksgiving Story Enlightened Omnivore
~~~~~~~~~~~~
In 30 years of buying and selling the past it was hard not to wrap your mind around it, and the most valuable coins were ones that were commerce virgins, as if they’d been caught with a velvet glove upon emerging from the coining press at the mint, and carefully hidden away from the public, but it was the ones that were worn out, such as the 1900 Indian Head Cent (we never had Pennies ever in Federal coinage) that had the most fun over probably many decades of use, and the stories they could tell.
An interesting movie along those lines is 1993’s Twenty Bucks.
– ‘How the CIA Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace Partisanship’ – The After-Action Report
Once you realize that this is itself a very partisan piece from what I would call the “CIA Democrat” perspective, then it is easy to understand how CIA “partisanship” and its failure to stay “above” politics started with Orange Hitler. As usual, it is not that the crimes of the Trump administration aren’t outrageous. It is, rather, the outrageous obliviousness to past crimes and obvious cover-up of the real bipartisan national security Establishment that is both irritating and laughable. Regarding the latter there are passages that literally made me laugh out loud.
For example, in response to Laura Logan’s suggestion that perhaps the CIA was behind the Washington shooting by a former Afghan CIA asset, the author Seth Hettena says this: “It’s just the latest addition to the CIA’s ever-expanding conspiracy resume: running the drug trade, hiding UFOs, faking the moon landing, killing JFK, MLK, and Bob Marley, orchestrating 9/11, and on and on.” I’d suggest that some of these things are not like the others. But Hettena lays out the usual “conspiracy theory” narrative in which belief in fake moon landings is equivalent to belief that the CIA might have been involved in the global drug trade or the JFK assassination. The laughs come when you understand that this is a guy who wrote a book in 2018 called ‘Trump/Russia: A Definitive History’, where he lays out the proofs of Trump’s traitorous ties to Russia that would soon be uncovered (he suggests) by the then-ongoing Mueller investigation. Some conspiracy theories are not like the others.
But that is not all. There are some hilarious unintended (I assume) statements revealing Hettena’s bias. In condemning Trump’s CIA director for “politicizing” the agency, he says this:
“Once an intelligence agency embraces partisanship, every estimate it produces becomes suspect. You can’t have your chief spokesperson say that three former CIA directors—Brennan, Hayden, and Panetta—are now “disgraced” for signing a letter about Hunter Biden’s laptop without everyone questioning the objectivity of the CIA’s latest intelligence product on Iran’s nuclear program or the administration’s current obsession, drug cartels.”
Does Hettenaa really not see the irony in this sentence? Brennan, Hayden, and Panetta – the epitome of public liars – and partisan liars at that! But it gets worse. Despite the “drug-trade” conspiracy comment, he later goes on to actually use Gary Webb’s Dark Alliance story to *defend* CIA practices with regard to the press (he is careful not to mention Webb’s name). He explains helpfully,
“Yes, the Office of Public Affairs tries to shape stories to put the CIA in the best possible light, but it does that (or did, at any rate) by supplying facts, pointing out errors, and building relationships with trusted reporters. Those relationships are critical to the agency when the next big PR crisis hits, as they tend to do every few years.”
I won’t even attempt to quote Hettena’s whole convoluted rationale here, but I’d recommend reading it for those who want a morning laugh.
There are other gems, like this quote from a well-known fellow CIA white-washer: “I’ve worked with CIA public-affairs officers since 1987,“ said Tim Weiner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of two CIA histories, Legacy of Ashes and The Mission. “That vicious tone, the MAGA rhetoric, violates the tradition that CIA doesn’t do politics. But Ratcliffe is a political animal, as much an acolyte to Trump as Hegseth or Patel.”
I apologize for the rant. I’ll stop now. But this kind of stuff is not only infuriating, it completely obscures the reasons why we have a Donald Trump in the White House.
They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.
Rant on, pjay, rant on!
second that!
I am “struggling” with such emotions whenever I open my inbox with new spytalk messages.
If you think clearly what these agencies have done over the decades and then such people seriously argue they have moral qualms about the US and bla blah blah but in the end yessssss they with a heavy heart must agree with it all. Then Göring had more guts. At least he admitted that they were monsters and they loved it and they would do it again.
There’s a famous quote by former CIA director William Casey.
” We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the US public believes is false.”
William J. Casey
The US wants a bomb back from Lebanon…
Good grief. “Yeah, I know he took a swing at you and aimed to crack your skull but I gave him the baseball bat so youze better give it back to me.”
Hope Lebanon tells Trump to go pound sand.
There’s always the trebuchet option
Whats that? You want it back?…
Blowback, Boomerangs, and the Imperial Doom Loop Un-Diplomatic
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Had a blissful week of skiing and soaking-away from this ball & chain, so i’m playing catch-up with the news, and this murder is oh so similar to the 2 Israeli embassy employees and Charlie Kirk earlier in the year, all used to enact draconian policies, not all that dissimilar from the murder of a German embassy employee in Paris by a Polish Jew in 1938-which set off Kristallnacht a few days later in the Fatherland, even though no German Jews were involved, sound familiar?
lol
Appeals Court Says Alina Habba Is Unlawful U.S. Attorney (NY Times via archive.ph)
Oops.
Patrick Lawrence on Trump the pardoner. It’s not just him
https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/01/pardon-me/
He concludes
Or in other words the question is not so much is Trump our most corrupt president but rather is this our most corrupt era? That bird of prey has big wings.
RE: Tether’s interest play –
Tether has been identified as a massive risk for years now. There’s some fuckery around their audits and the possibility that they were creating unbacked USDT. Even if this is not true the fact that they back USDT in BTC is a massive risk of its own.
Circle’s USDC (BlackRock’s stablecoin of choice) does not hold any BTC to back USDC and is fully audited.
YOSEMITE, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – Entrance fees at Yosemite National Park and Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Park are about to increase dramatically for foreign visitors – and the new rules mean American visitors will have to show ID to avoid the charge.
According to the National Park Service, 11 sites across the country will enforce a $100 surcharge for each nonresident entering without a pass – including Yosemite, Sequoia & Kings Canyon – starting on Jan. 1.
As part of the changes, the National Park Service also announced that nonresident visitors in parties of three or more can instead purchase a $250 “America the Beautiful” yearly pass, which admits the driver and all passengers in a personal vehicle.
When YourCentralValley.com asked for clarification on entrance fees at the park gates, officials explained that visitors 16 years old or older will need to show an appropriate ID proving they are US residents to avoid the nonresident fee when it’s applied on Jan. 1
https://www.kron4.com/news/yosemite-visitors-need-american-id-to-avoid-new-foreigner-fee-nps/
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Its quite cosmopolitan here especially in the summer months, when the world rushes in to glimpse the largest trees in the world.
You might hear German in one aisle of our grocery store, while Chinese is spoken in the next aisle. Perhaps foreigners make up 25% of our visitors.
They contribute quite a bit in their efforts, as they have to rent cars, go to restaurants and so on.
We’re gonna kill their visitation, mainly because we want to gouge them.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/america-pricing-national-park-fees-increase-foreign-visitors/story?id=127894591
The Louvre just raised non EU visitor price to around $40. Culture/nature price war upward?
I assume National Gallery in London still free. We should do the same for Brits.
Banff National Park is bracing for the hordes.
Can anyone guess what Pete Hegseth is posting memes about?
https://x.com/PeteHegseth/status/1995291042346852861
‘Gun down a boat diplomacy’
What a POS. It’s so disgusting how much these people love murder.
Like a general out of the Vietnam era who demanded high body counts to prove that he was winning. Didn’t work then and won’t work now.
https://bjornbeam.substack.com/p/the-drug-war-that-isnt-about-drugs
Found this on LinkedIn of all places. Another link to the drug trade for the current administration. Look at their Central/South American military policy with a lens of drug trafficking and it seems like cartel behaviour. The way they are looking to target Mexican cartels and re-establish this known trafficker is quite interesting…
Leavitt to Believer
In this week’s episode, Eddie ‘Hegseth’ Haskell guns down survivors on the high seas, and then Karoline strafes reporters, adding in one more point why these lethal strikes were happening, all Genocide Joe’s fault.
MAGA on the March
A Surprise When Your Package Arrives: You Have to Pay the Tariff (NY Times via archive.ph)
This is just little people, and there’s no Taco quest here. You’re on your own.
ATW live now
unfortunately so far Kirn´s forte is not with US foreign
policy…Venzuelan immigrants a clue to where drugs come from? “We” did not do Oct. 7th? Maduro is the new Noriega? Maduro ending up with a condo in Miami? Venezuela = Panama? What kind of kindergarten is this…
but it´s a long show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55M2paDvpAY
I was on skid row and then got into hot water…
I’m here to say that skiing is thriving in Mammoth as its about the only game in town, er state. Lake Tahoe doesn’t have much snow-not enough to open the resorts, and i’ve never purposely launched myself down a perfectly steep mountainside over and over again on a weekday with so many others. Twas busy.
It coulda gone the other way and the weather gawds pummeled Tahoe instead with oodles of frozen white, luck of the draw stuff.
Best and worst November skiing i’ve ever had, as I’ve never skied in November before because the snow is usually skimpy with exposed rocks and roots in your way, which even with an older pair of rock skis, ain’t no bueno having to avoid stuff all the time, not to mention the ‘brown smears’ where snow has largely melted out revealing dirt patches, yuck.
Wasn’t bad though once you got high enough~
Flyboys don’t do their thing over Thanksgiving, and they don’t fly on weekends, but Tuesday-Wednesday was good for 16 really low overflights a hundred or 200 feet overhead of F-18’s and F-35’s (they can still get it up, despite claims to the contrary) in Star Wars Canyon-adjacent in Death Valley NP.
Imagine that, well over a billion worth of wasted tax $, putting on a show for us.
I won’t say anything specifically about lab-grown meat because I haven’t read enough details about its efficiency in regards to energy or land use, but I wanted to give you a heads up that that claim that crops (used to produced lab-grown meat) kill more animals than meat farming has been bandied about for years as an argument against veganism, and it doesn’t pass the smell test on its face.
The reason for this is that the amount of vegetable crops that is required to feed animals that are then fed to humans is significantly higher than the amount it would take to feed humans directly with those vegetable crops.
Here is one article that I’ve found with data about this: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
Voles were one of the animals mentioned in the lab grown meat tweet, and this year was an explosion in their population, just ridiculous.
In fact, I don’t remember seeing any voles in the foothills say 10 years ago, only in the high country of the Sierra around 5-8k feet.
If you are among the first on a trail after the winter snow has melted, you’ll see their raised tunnels of dirt about 3 inches tall and 2 inches wide that were pressed up against the snow. they are quite extensive.
They collapse and go away looking like the rest of the dirt after a dozen boots walk on them.
We’ve always had copious amounts of gophers, I wonder what co-existence is like for them with voles?
Today’s Links is just depressing.
That mealy-mouthed Lindsay Graham goes all Liberace-gaga about the Telegraph editorial by Gen. Zaluzhnyi waxing poetic about the “combat experience” that the AFU was gaining in 2021 (against “Ukraine’s” own citizens). “History” apparently begins after the Euromaidan coup d’état. Then Turley regurgitates the tall-tale that 6 “Ukrainians” on a rented sailboat were somehow able to free-dive down to Nordstream with enough high-explosive to blow it up and get back onto their boat without succumbing to the bends — or a dive platform.
Of course, it was on the Kalorama Kenyan’s watch that Facebook was able to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp without an anti-trust blow-up. And speaking of plastic outhouses, how deep is CalPERS into the Blackstone and Ares secondary funds that are in the USS s**t-show? The fund appears to be on every side of that deal, with stakes in seller Platinum Equity and lenders Clearlake Capital Partners and Searchlight Capital Partners as well.
So much phoniness.
CalPERs has sent out a glossy prospectus to private equity titled
“We’ll Hold the Bag for You!”