Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time? Sapiens
The World’s Largest Urban Railway System in the Making JRUrbaneNetwork
What if the Italians Built a Subway under Providence? The Transit Guy
It’s not the Baumol Effect Pedestrian Observations
NASA loses contact with MAVEN Mars orbiter Space News
Climate/Environment
WA floods: Evacuations underway near Skagit, Snohomish, other rivers Seattle Times. Potential for 100,000 evacuations.
Potentially catastrophic river flooding anticipated in western Washington state next couple of days Balanced Weather. Meteorologist describes it as “almost incomprehensible.”
Pandemics
SARS-CoV-2 Leaves a Lasting Mark on the Immune System John Snow Project. A layperson overview of important study, ‘Persistent Attenuation of Lymphocyte Subsets After Mass SARS-CoV-2 Infection.’
So more infections = reduced immunity + more infections with other pathogens which increases the amount of pathogens circulating to infect others which futher increases the incidence of other infections. Which increases vulnerability to infection which increases incidence of in https://t.co/AUTrfGBhkR
— Dr Evonne T Curran NursD 💙🇺🇦 (@EvonneTCurran) December 9, 2025
A recent scientific paper explored the impact of mass SARS-CoV-2 infections on Lymphocytes (crucial to the body’s immune system).
I noticed the authors had shared the data behind their charts in the Appendix Supplementary materials, so I built a quick dataviz project.
🧵 pic.twitter.com/jLJiBZL2y1— Mike Honey (@Mike_Honey_) December 8, 2025
Things like mortality rising higher than births in some parts of the country, antibiotic resistance creeping up, disability claims rising, sickness absence climbing…
— tern (@1goodtern) December 9, 2025
***
H5N1’s tipping point: Scientists identify when containment fails Nature
Japan
US nuclear-capable bombers fly with Japanese jets after China-Russia drills, Tokyo says Asia One
China?
New York Times Editorial Board Urges US To Prepare for Future War With China Antiwar
China will destroy US military in fight over Taiwan, top secret document warns The Telegraph
India
Indian arms makers held rare meetings in Russia on potential joint ventures Reuters
Nepal
US regime change front funded Nepalese youth revolutionaries, leaks reveal The Grayzone
Thailand- Cambodia Conflict
Fighting rages at Cambodia-Thailand border ahead of expected Trump call Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Winter rains flood Gaza tents as Israel bombs, demolishes Palestinian homes New Arab
Gaza’s babies ‘scarred by war before first breath’ by malnutrition UN News
Israel’s biggest con trick: Hiding the true numbers it has killed in Gaza Jonathan Cook
Remember what it took the get politicians to start calling for banning social media for kids; awareness of Israel’s genocide. https://t.co/QKugsK9rk3
— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) December 9, 2025
In new peace, US firms will help Israel spy on and target Gazans Responsible Statecraft
How Israel Organizes and Arms Settler Militias to Terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank Drop Site
Israel will withhold 50 million cubic meters of water from Jordan: Report Türkiye Today
ARE WE STILL FIGHTING IRAN? Seymour Hersh
European Disunion
Europe quietly abandons dream of indigenous 6th-gen fighter Al Mayadeen
NATO IS A FAIRY TALE BOOK AND A BUSINESS SYNDICATE Comidad
Thomas Massie Introduces Bill to Withdraw U.S. from NATO American Conservative
Belgium is Caught Between the Euro Dog and the Russian Fireplug Larry Johnson
New Not-So-Cold War
More war! Events in Ukraine
After “peace”, will Ukrainian ultra-nationalists and NATO continue waging a hybrid war? Andrea Zhok
The Hidden Script Venik
The Russian NSS Julian Macfarlane
Russia’s hybrid warfare puts Europe to the test FT. Unsurprisingly, unnamed intelligence press for continuation war.
Just Shut Up & Fight, Already! US, Europe Waste Time with Delusional Talks While Russia Advances Mark Sleboda (Video)
Making Sense of The Après-Ukraine. Aurelien
Africa
US sanctions Colombians involved in Sudan war but fails to mention UAE link Middle East Eye. Now why might that be?
The Great Game
Kazakhstan to Supply Kashagan Crude to China Directly After CPC Terminal Damage Astana Times. Damaged by Ukraine/NATO attack.
South of the Border
US seizes Venezuelan oil tanker in act of international piracy, as Trump escalates war preparations WSWS
War With Venezuela Is Heating Up: Here Are The Motives Behind It. The Dissident
Inside the Pentagon’s Scramble to Deal With Boat Strike Survivor New York Times
Narcotics as a Hostile Threat? Seven Questions for Retired Major General Steven Lepper The After-Action Report
today is the anniversary of Gary Webb’s murder pic.twitter.com/kamgbGYs2N
— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) December 11, 2025
Hemispheric Fault Lines: Venezuela’s Resistance and Latin America’s Crossroads Between Sovereignty and Neocolonialism Vanessa Beeley and Fiorella Isabel
Congress approves new tariffs on goods from China and non-FTA countries Mexico News Daily
Trump 2.0
US threatens new ICC sanctions unless court pledges not to prosecute Donald Trump Reuters
Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal ProPublica
How Donald Trump Jr’s Fortune Jumped Six-Fold In A Year Forbes
Eric Trump Has Gotten 10 Times Richer Since Dad’s Election Forbes
Is the White House’s AI Policy Coherent? Gary Marcus
Marching Morons: Dystopian Sci-Fi Classic That Inspired “Idiocracy” Puts the Trump Administration In A Grim New Genocidal Light Dougald Lamont
Accelerationists
Book Notes: The Technological Republic (2025) The Scholar’s Stage. Book co-authored by Palantir CEO Alex Karp and his legal counsel Nicholas Zamiska. From the review: “In form and tone it resembles a business class airport book—and this comparison is insulting to the airport paperbacks.”
“Liberation Day”
US-Indonesia trade deal at risk of collapse FT
How Trump’s tariffs forced China to pivot – and export more CNN
Desperate farmers say the ‘system is broken’ as bailout arrives USA Today
The Uniparty
Congress should reject the $901 billion military policy bill Stephen Semler. They didn’t.
Mamdani
Daily Dirt: Real Estate Funds Mamdani’s Transition RealEstate.news
At closed-door meeting, Mamdani reassures developers, investors his door “will remain open” The Real Deal
Immigration
Trump launches gold card programme for expedited visas with a nearly $1.3m price tag Straits Times
Have Top Chinese AI Researchers Stayed in the United States? Carnegie Endowment for International peace
Imperial Collapse Watch
Turning Gabbro into Rare Earths Akin to Spinning Straw into Gold Karl Sanchez
The Decline of Understanding: How America Lost the Ability to Study the World Kautilya the Contemplator
***
Mounting debt crisis means global South governments are spending on average 15% of their revenue servicing external debt. This figure has doubled since 2010.
More than 3.4 billion people now live in countries that spend more on interest payments than on health or education. pic.twitter.com/odf7bFPZrp
— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) December 10, 2025
GEOPOLITICAL TENSIONS AND INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL FRAGMENTATION EVIDENCE AND IMPLICATIONS CEPR (via Adam Tooze who highlights the following:)
[The US and countries geopolitically close to it] account for roughly 65% of global external assets and liabilities. The share of China and countries geopolitically close to China in total gross assets and liabilities has increased in recent years, from about 2% to 3%, hence remaining comparatively low. This stands in contrast with China’s much larger footprint in global GDP (15%) and global trade (13%).
AI
DOW Leak: Inside The AI Platform & Internal Memo Ka’s Counterprogramming
Healthcare?
Trump is (Kind of) Right HEALTH CARE un-covered
Abortion
Obstetric-Related Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act Violations and No Health Exception Bans JAMA Health Forum
Economy
Fed cuts interest rates by a quarter point amid apparent split over US economy The Guardian
Fed Chair Jerome Powell Says U.S. May Be Drastically Overstating Jobs Numbers WSJ
Guillotine Watch
Extreme inequality – and what to do about it Michael Roberts
The Deregulated Casino
Think tanker altered Ukraine war map before big Polymarket payout Responsible Statecraft
Inside the Dark and Predatory World of Crypto Casinos New York Times
Class Warfare
Online/Offline Working Class Storytelling
Tightrope of Hope London Review of Books
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Israel will withhold 50 million cubic meters of water from Jordan: Report”
Maybe Jordan should tell Israel that the next time they go to fight Iran, that they will be sitting that war out. The Jordanian Air Force will stay on the ground and will not help shoot down Iranian missiles nor will their aerial defenses take part in defending Israel either. Israel must be flush with money if they can knock back the money that would be earned selling that 50 million cubic meters of water.
Jordan’s ruling monarchy is effectively propped up by the Zionists and probably the US against the wishes of their population, which consists of a huge number of Palestinian immigrants. The King has made a very few milquetoast reproachments against Israel for the genocide and the settler activity but the 1994 peace treaty remains in effect. A little googling will show a huge amount of writing by opposing think tanks and international organizations on the topic.
Remember those flights that the Jordanian king was taking over Gaza to drop supplies to the Palestinians below because he is such a good guy? It came out that the Jordanians were earning tens of thousands of dollars with each flight and for all we know it went direct into royal coffers.
MCAS as a long term effect of c19 possibly treated by L-theanine
Inside the Dark and Predatory World of Crypto Casinos New York Times
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the sites grew larger, they paid online celebrities multimillion-dollar deals to promote the casinos. In August, Drake and the famous livestreamers Adin Ross, xQc and Trainwreck gambled together on Stake for a live audience.
Still, mental health clinicians who work with young people see signs that the problem is growing. Matt Missar, a gambling counselor at The Better Institute in Pittsburgh, said he had seen a few dozen patients between 16 and 26 years old in recent years and most of them were gambling on crypto casinos. “They’re watching these streamers, and the streamers are winning their bets,” Mr. Missar said. “They have this false notion in their head that it’s just a matter of time until I hit it big like Drake did, or like Adin Ross did.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Adin Ross grew up here in Three Rivers and that’s the only reason i’m aware of him-and I don’t know him, but he went to school with my buddy’s son, so i’ve kind of followed him.
Benedict Donald gave Adin an hour and a half interview before the 2024 election, and that’s the kind of pull these idiotic livestreamers (kids and young adults watch him play video games-how droll) have with young men, and news flash: they’re all degenerate gamblers themselves, wagering huge sums of money on this, that or whatever, and bragging about it online.
When I was in high school a few of my teachers were RTD’s (Race Track Degenerates) who would regale me with tales of the $1,426 exacta win on a $5 ticket thus evading mandatory taxes taken out if you won more than 300x on your wager, but when I went to Santa Anita with them, they couldn’t pick a winner to save themselves.
After I graduated, one of them: Mr. Martin, asked if I could loan him some money and I was so proud to be able to offer up $200 to help him and then it took me forever to get my money back, that’s how problem gamblers are, should’ve been a real warning flag and it took me years to break the addiction, but that was in the days of gambling horse & buggies when everything moved like molasses, not now when you can get a bet down toot suite!
Same with DTDs (Dog Track Degenerates) in the part of my family that lived in the Sunshine State (Jai Alai further south in Florida didn’t seem to attract them). They all remembered the trifecta that paid a thousand dollars but the tens of thousands of worthless $2 tickets were forgotten. It was an amazing thing to hear about, even when I was in junior high school.
Later on I had a friend who spent a lot of time on the horses. All I remember him saying is, “If I had picked the 7-horse instead of the 3-horse, I would have won $43,000! He also couldn’t count to higher than 6 on the golf course. There was a connection between the two things.
One time I was at Los Alamitos racetrack in Orange County for a Orange County Fair meeting of thoroughbred horses (it was typically a quarter horse sprint track) and the first race went off and seemed like any old race, no contact between horses or anything, and the Inquiry sign came out and there was about a 15 minute delay and then they announced that due to a starting gate malfunction the race results were annulled and all tickets would be refunded, making every ticket on the ground that had been tossed, a Winner!
I think I made $48 in the effort picking up discarded tix, and keep in mind everybody else was doing the same thing, as there hadn’t been any races prior.
i only ever gambled when the dishroom people would do “Squares” for the superbowl.
didnt understand it, didnt care about football…often didnt know who was playing.
but it was for kitchen esprit de corps, so i dropped $5, or whatever.
never won anything, of course.
whomever did would bring a case of cheap beer for after hours cleanup the next saturday.
only time i ever “won” anything:…ran out of gas somewhere outside of New Iberia, Louisiana…broke.
and im walkin down the road just to kill time…since i reckoned that i lived at that spot, now,lol…and there’s an hundred dollar bill stuck in the grass on the side of the road.
so i got the jug from the van and walked to nearest gas station and back and was on my way.
I had to smile at the mention of Jai Alai. Back in the mid-70’s I worked closely with a Cuban-American and being new to FL, he went out of his way to introduce me to the Cuban Community in Tampa. He introduced me to my first scene at the Tampa Fronton and told me, how, and who, to bet on. He informed me about one player set up for 3 or 4 matches that evening whose wife had just had twins… and his opponents all knew he needed the winnings, so bet on him in his singles and doubles matches.
I made about three weeks pay in less than a couple of hours (and learned a valuable lesson on Jai Alia betting – Don’t!).
I enjoyed watching Jai Alai, and the last time I went was in Tijuana around the turn of the century, and I swear they held up matches so we could get our few bucks bets down. It seemed as if we were the only ones in the audience and it closed for good soon afterwards.
I went to the fronton in Reno once in the early 80’s, crazy man!
As an undergrad I built my schedule around the meets at Keeneland race course. Hand to g*d in three years I didn’t miss a day or a race. French Lab was for studying the Racing Form. Saturdays, dates were allowed, otherwise all business all week. A crony and I figured out that if you couldn’t decide on a horse, the ‘finger sheet’- Daily Sports News- often paid on a Place bet. I had a reclusive bookie named ‘Monk’ who lived over a bar and never went out. I started losing, washing dishes apres in a Pizza Hut for suppers. Thank goodness.
Scary stuff. I couldn’t even wrap my head around it back in the 80s. Bookie outside the shop at lunch a couple days a week collecting from the guy. Same guy who organized a deep sea fishing trip, took the deposits, backed out of going on the departure day, turns out gambled and lost the deposits.
Now we’ve got the internet mainlining that behavior.
Dog track was all the (not long for this world) small business owners hanging out betting while the peons were back doing the work.
“Making Sense of The Après-Ukraine.”
Lots of interesting viewpoints and material in this essay though I would dispute the attempt to make this war all about Russia vs the Ukraine like talked about here-
‘It’s being fought between two advanced technology nations with indigenous defence industries, whose equipment is similar, and in some cases identical, and largely from the same technological tradition.’
If we are going to be honest, it is actually an American proxy war against Russia. No America, no war. But it is not just America but nearly all of NATO as well as other western allies such as Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, etc. so you are talking about forty nations, many of whom have literally emptied their armouries of military equipment that was sent to the Ukraine. This complicated Ukrainian logistics endlessly as they had to integrate military equipment from all these countries whether you are talking about tanks, fighters, anti-tank missiles and all sorts of other equipment. And just to add the cherry to this turd logistics pie, the west was forcing the Ukraine to use NATO doctrine which simply did not work in this war. Experienced Ukrainian soldiers undertaking NATO training have revolted at the lessons being taught saying they it was a good way to get yourself killed. I mention this to note that although NATO has had nearly four years to learn the lessons from the front, this is still not being done and nothing is changing.
And the western armories were not emptied with the best systems first. They got a lot of ancient and moth-balled gear, much of which, even in its best days, was suited for counterinsurgency and engagements against enemies without air cover.
1/2 re: Germany authoritarianism
From the same day earlier this week:
1) Berlin local parliament expands police laws
“The Berlin House of Representatives passed a far-reaching amendment to the General Law on Public Safety and Order (ASOG) on Thursday with votes from the CDU, SPD, and AfD. As reported by Heise , the amendment allows the police to covertly enter apartments to install surveillance software on digital devices.
The new regulations in Sections 26a and 26b concern so-called source telecommunications surveillance and covert online searches. If remote installation of malware is technically impossible, Section 26 explicitly permits the police to “covertly enter and search premises” to gain access to IT systems. In practice, this means that investigators can install spyware directly onto devices such as smartphones or laptops, for example, via USB stick.”
https://www.telepolis.de/article/Berlin-erlaubt-heimliche-Wohnungseinbrueche-fuer-Staatstrojaner-11108351.html
2) Immigration regulations are toughened
“Deportations are being accelerated, “return centers” are being built in third countries, and the mandatory lawyer for deportation detention is being abolished.”
https://www.telepolis.de/article/EU-und-Deutschland-verschaerfen-Asylrecht-11108233.html
And nobody cares.
The Stasi would have been envious. Ordnung muss sein.
and you kown whats scariest actually – you get used to it
you just stop talking to people or stop articulating anything in public
Initially I had planned to speak out in some public events during Q&A for instance until I realized that it´s suicide. The moment people take out their phones and start filming you you are done.
Sci-fi literature promised us these things to be adventurous and scary and big and real live-changing single events. Legendary stories you tell your grandchildren.
But as it always is – once the dystopia of yesteryear turns into today´s reality it´s mundane, frustrating and leaves no space for resistance that makes you feel you are doing something.
It´s just tasteless, odourless, uneventful demise of anything that would ever matter.
off-topic: Rahm is ageing horrendously, looks terrible.
it always fascinates me to see how people with de facto infinite resources age. Rahm must be the only person who didn’t pick up good diet/lifestyle habits while living in Japan
I guess that his Dorian Gray painting could only absorb so much punishment and no more.
Louis Fyne: When I saw him, I thought: Should I comment?
Thanks for breaking the barrier.
He’s a reminder of two adages that apply to men:
—You grow into your face.
—Handsome is as handsome does.
Also, his gestuality is thoroughly fake. He’s like an automaton, one badly made.
And the pronunciations? Lots of slippage. Now that I truly didn’t expect. He’s all mushymouthed. Hmmm.
Looked at this only to see if the way he presents bodes well for any future political ambitions. Could he be attractive to any significant part of a future electorate? Nah.
He’s earnest: Rahm
Or, as Nelson Algren reputedly said, “At twenty you have the face you’re born with. At fifty you have the face youn deserve.”
Meet Gary Webb. Now consider the cocaine that the US is plundering off the coast of Venezuela.
“Do Africa’s Mass Animal Migrations Extend Into Deep Time?”
This is quite a fascinating article and states that those mass animal migrations that we see in Africa go back only about 10,000 years. It also states that pastoralism, farming and agriculture only emerged in some places about 10,000 years ago. You have to wonder if 10,000 years ago our ancestors, seeing all those animals aka food disappear over the horizon, realized that it was time to up their game and find new ways of getting food locally so that they did not have to chase those animals.
I tried to link to the BBC article on generation Z and retrotech. BBC now it appears requires purchase of a subscription to access content. I declined. Based on past articles, I do not think BBC content is worth $49 per year.
Bill Gates and NVIDIA teaming up to build nuclear power plants in the US.
Bill Gates’ TerraPower gets NRC green light for safety in construction of its first nuclear plant
https://www.geekwire.com/2025/gates-backed-terrapower-gets-nrc-green-light-for-safety-in-construction-of-its-first-nuclear-plant/
First 2 para’s:
‘Nuclear power company TerraPower has passed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s final safety evaluation for a permit to build a reactor in Wyoming. The Washington-based company backed by Bill Gates and NVIDIA could be the first to deploy a utility-scale, next-generation reactor in America.
TerraPower’s Natrium design pairs a small modular reactor (SMR) with an integrated thermal battery. The SMR generates 345 megawatts of continuous electrical power. The thermal battery, which stores excess heat in molten salt, allows the system to surge its output to 500 megawatts for more than five hours, generating enough energy to power 400,000 homes at maximum capacity.’
‘enough energy to power 400,000 homes at maximum capacity’
Or maybe one or two data centers. Hmpphh. Nuclear power. Brought to you by the man who gave us Blues Screens of Death.
Great news!
We need all the low carbon power we can get
“Fighting rages at Cambodia-Thailand border ahead of expected Trump call”
This could be a valuable lesson for Trump. He thought that he ended the Cambodia-Thailand war by economic threats on his way to a Nobel peace prize. But what he never did was to treat the root causes of this war so after a few months, it flared up all over again. Will Trump learn his lesson here which could be applied to the war in the Ukraine? No, I don’t think so either.
Trump is never wrong thus needs learn no lessons.
Lessons need to learn from Trump.
https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?site_no=12200500&legacy=1
I crossed the skagit on tues the 9th at about the peak for that day, it was pretty high and lots of logs in the flow. Clearly a lot worse now
Yes, I just contacted a buddy in Seattle. Several counties are really being hammered. I spent 30 years up there. Got to say being in the central CA coast is pretty nice in the winter. Today it’s 75 and sunny. Stay dry.
There is a Go Now order for the Skagit 100-year flood plain. Around 100K people. But WHERE do they go?
We live in Skagit county, but we intentionally bought a house on high ground and we aren’t near the river.
Location, location location…
I wouldn’t want to be in a basement in burlington
“US threatens new ICC sanctions unless court pledges not to prosecute Donald Trump”
‘President Donald Trump’s administration wants the International Criminal Court to amend its founding document to ensure it does not investigate the American leader and his top officials’
Trump seems to have a very thin skin about being held responsible for his actions, even though the US will never let a US President be arrested by the ICC. That is why they wrote the Hague Invasion Act of 2002. Personally I think that the ICC should do it. In its founding document have it say that they will never, ever arrest Donald J. Trump. Can you imagine how hard he will be mocked over this going forward?
That article has been heavily edited from the original, archived here. Looks like the entire section with the header ‘OPEN CHATTER’ ABOUT TARGETING TRUMP (their all-caps, not mine) got the chop. Here, the article speculates on what actions, like murdering people on the open seas, that the Trump administration is concerned about, and we can’t have that. Lol.
“Belgium is Caught Between the Euro Dog and the Russian Fireplug”
The guys at The Duran brought up an interesting point. Kaja Kallas wants those frozen assets and has assured Belgium that there is not a court in the EU that would side with Russia over the EU. This is EU justice at work. But it turns out that both Russia and Belgium have signed all sorts of agreements and treaties between themselves and one of these covers any disputes. Turns out that if Belgium gave the EU those frozen assets, then Russia will take them to court and it could be any court in the world where actual justice would rule.
If KK is right then there’s no reason other nations should not indemnify Belgium and/or Euroclear. Money, where mouth is, put.
re: US surveillance state
MOON OF ALABAMA
same tune as Glenn Greenwald recently
U.S. Requires Social Strip-Search On Entry
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/12/u-s-to-require-social-strip-search-on-entry.html
“To travel to China is now much easier than to travel to the ‘leader of the free world’. There are no visa requirements in China for up to 30 day visits from my country. No questions are asked. There are no checks on social media. There are no immigration lines, just a 10 second glance at one’s passport. Besides that crime is low in China and prices are decent.
Is the U.S. unaware of how much damage it does to its global image by demanding a ridiculous amount of private data from any visitor to it? Or doesn’t it care?
I for one don’t plan to visit the U.S. ever again.”
The business community will make a stink. They have execs and staffers that need to come to the US who will rebel. I expect this will be watered down a lot.
I epect there will be simply exemptions, for example business trips from EU dealing with US companies.
US tourism will be killed by this.
Yes, the more laws you enact, the more selective enforcement and prosecutions can be employed against the “wrong” people, while letting the “right” people skate on by. That’s a given.
Some thoughts from me: this seems similar to the scrutiny to get a visa, except there you give them access,here you are supposed to self-report. How does one even start doing that? And what if you forget something? How does this become law after the comment period?
Finally, you already have to put parents’ name, employer info on the ESTA now.
Watered down but not go away as it should. Where do they find the mole people who come up with this kind of nonsense?
Those who were planning to come to the USA for World Cup 2026 should use their social media to document why they have changed their mind.
re: Germany de-banking
Florian Warweg from NACHDENKSEITEN posed some questions at the government press conference
use google-translate
Federal government on wave of account closures among government critics: “We are a free country”
On December 9th, the German Communist Party (DKP) announced that GLS Bank had terminated all of its accounts without further explanation. Shortly before the termination, the bank had urgently requested information from the DKP regarding a fundraising campaign for Cuba. Earlier this year, the accounts of numerous journalists critical of the government, such as Gaby Weber, Aya Velázquez, and Flavio von Witzleben, as well as those of publishers (Mehring Verlag) and radio stations (Kontrafunk), had already been terminated. Against this backdrop, the NachDenkSeiten website wanted to know whether the German government could rule out the possibility that individual ministries had exerted pressure on the banks in question, and how Chancellor Merz generally assesses the increasing trend of “debanking” voices critical of the government in Germany.
By Florian Warweg
https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=143481
I have lived southeast of Seattle my whole life and it is the worst I have ever seen. Rivers and streams burst their banks and water is flowing at high speed everywhere. It started slowly, then escalated to catastrophe within 24 hours. Yakima was a record-breaking 72 degrees yesterday. Next week it may start again.
Same here just west across Puget Sound from Seattle. Unfortunately even more is coming. Hang in there and stay safe:
Catastrophic Deluge Continues, More to Come! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7eMPDsHtSA
Weird thing here- I live in a central Seattle neighborhood, Ballard, and it has hardly been raining here at all. Some puddles. Rain shadow I guess. Bizarre
Now it get it. Tropical express X. I commented above. 72 for eastern WA in December!
Just crazy. I am in a little area in Central CA where things stay about the same other than either a bit more fog or warmer temperatures in winter. I hope there is minimal losses up there. Kind of wishful thinking.
Hang in there, looks like a rough road ahead with something liquid this way comes~
I met Gary Webb when he was doing his book tour, he struck me as a very kind man.
As to whether is was murder or suicide…it was a double action revolver and it is possible that he convulsed after the first shot and thus fired again.
Not likely, possible.
Suchir Balaji is also alleged to have committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, twice, with a Glock.
See “Limp wristing”, there may be a way to do that in hell, not on earth.
Much as I love and agree with zei_squirrel normally, I’ve heard some disagreement on Webb’s death. Scholar and poet Peter Dale Scott is a frequent guest on Aaron Good’s American Exception podcast, and in discussing Webb, Scott stated he had spoken to several people close to Webb, including possibly the investigating officer on the death. Supposedly, there was some kind of error with the first shot, which went in and through his jaw – definitely the head, but not necessarily fatal. Webb then supposedly finished the job with the second shot.
While not excluding the possibility of foul play, Scott (and Aaron) both come down on the “more likely than not” suicide. To be fair, the damage to Webb’s life at that point was total and irreversible: the main job at the paper (San Jose Mercury, I think?) was gone. He had recently been fired or run out from a small town government job, the only place that would hire him. His marriage was over. And to add insult to a mountain of indignities and suffering, I’m pretty sure Scott said that Webb’s only form of transportation at the time, a small bike or motorcycle, had recently been stolen from in front of his place. It may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and seems plausible enough.
At the time of Webb’s death, his life had been thoroughly destroyed. Killing him, while not out of the question, would have served little purpose at that point – the sadists who destroyed him would have probably liked to see him suffer more.
The other heartbreaking thing? David Talbot was a frequent co-host and collaborator on that podcast, before his second stroke. Talbot said, shortly before the stroke, that one of his deepest regrets was not making more of an effort to hire Webb as an investigative journalist back then after the fallout and when Talbot was starting Salon (things were hectic, and Talbot said he lost track of him). Talbot felt that a journalism job at the beginning of internet news could have been enough to pull Webb out of the spiral that eventually killed him.
I read this with interest, thanks
In new peace, US firms will help Israel spy on and target Gazans – Responsible Statecraft
Where to start……………………………………
Aside from a prison system without due-process, redress or human rights…sort of like the concentration camps or gulags of the past… it is now an international private-public partnership test project to exert complete full spectrum dominance over targeted human population by those seeking to maximize roi or concentrated personal power.
On another note and considerable alarm to me…and I would think many others (I could be wrong)
It seems that these full spectrum systems, alogrithms that raise our kids, offloading critical brain functions to AI dependancy, privatized prison complexes and other medicaly life threatening, life altering and psychologically destructive activities ought to be considered in the same vain as historical examples of human medical tests/experiments:
Tuskegee Syphilis Study
Nazi Human Experimentation
Project MKUltra
Guatemala Syphilis Experiments
The Vipeholm Experiments
The Monster Study
The Aversion Project ………….
and my take on how things seem to run…
with all the hype, drum beating, gaslighting and bringing things like; WMD to lie us into war, waterboarding is or is not torture, genocide..is it or is it not, If Venezuela is a drug terrorist why is India not or why did Trump pardon a dude who shipped in 400 tons of coke not a terrorist and other such Orwellian gymnastics played by the corporate political class that thinks we need import high-tech jobs from overseas instead of asking the real question; Why in the hell can’t the most advanced country in the world figure out how to create it’s own high tech workers, can’t figure out how to ‘form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity’
I guess we can’t do these things, not because we don’t have the tools, but because the finacial geniouses who run things now are not geniouses and, are in it for themselves and could give not one rat excrement about anything else.
Further, since Trump has drained the swamp into his own political cesspool, he ought now to take a jump into that pool so that he can effectuate two things at once…..discharge himself and all those so rectally situated
Michael Roberts in “Extreme inequality – and what to do about it,” seems to be rehashing what has become increasingly obvious since at least 2008, but using the most recent figures for wealth/income.
The Fed recently cut rates. This will draw funds to the US. Interest rates for countries of the Global South on loans aimed at developing their economies–when not aimed at financing military hardware–are much higher than in the US and other wealthy nations–who tend to be the lenders. These higher rates are extractive and further debilitate economies of the Global South. Not only do wealthy nations exploit the natural and agricultural resources of the Global South, the extraction is doubled, including both the resources and interest from financing to exploit them.
I wonder how long this arrangement can endure before a widespread revolt, even revolution, will blow the top off and away.
This inequality piece simply rehashes old memes about giving the poor more education and health care so that they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, and even name checks Joseph Stieglitz.
I once got into it with Stieglitz face-to-face at a book signing about the uselessness of “let them eat education” — I need plumbers and people who can safely mount tires on my car — how about we just pay them more? A billionaire has exactly zero social utility compared to an aircraft mechanic or a firefighter.
Critical Materials: A Strategic Analysis, by Craig Tindale
Not sure if this superb, thought provoking article has been shared previously, but I highly recommend it. Here’s an excerpt from the conclusion, with a link below.
https://x.com/ctindale/status/1997471488514134481
The first day of Christmas
My true loathe went to sea
An oil tanker seized for free
{please add-on…}
On the second day of Christmas
My Buick’s in a tree
Two six packs down
One oil tanker
And Jasmine Crockett’s in the primary!
Going to the Nations Xmas Tree celebration for first time ever this Sunday for the centennial of the practice, and apparently there is a bit of militarism along with prayers and caroling, so i’m going to attempt to recite some of this…
The War Prayer, by Mark Twain
https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/19-american-empire/mark-twain-the-war-prayer-ca-1904-5/
re: ISW Ukraine maps manipulated for gambling
Think tanker altered Ukraine war map before big Polymarket payout
The Institute for the Study of War disavowed the edit, removed the employee, but is staying quiet, raising questions about the credibility of ISW and prediction gambling
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/isw-polymarket-ukraine-war-map/
Unfortunately they put this kid Nick Cleveland-Stout to cover the story and so the main thing is not discussed that ISW is a fraud as such and a major tool in the NATO propaganda spin.
The sensation of this one story obstructs the view on the entire landscape of lies since 2022.
… the entire landscape of lies since forever. Absolutely nothing has changed in 2022.