What Christmas Tamales Taught Me About Cooking Together Pax Culinaria
What rules govern Hallmark Christmas movies? Stephen Follows
An amateur codebreaker may have just solved the Black Dahlia and Zodiac killings Los Angeles Times
Climate/Environment
New ACEAS Explainer highlights risks of slowing global ocean overturning circulation Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science
The Pentagon is hoarding critical minerals that could power the clean energy transition Grist
Further thoughts about the WA levee breach comms concerns – and how our current federal government reality is not helping Balanced Weather
Washington state officials warn of toilet rats after floods: ‘Try to stay calm’ The Guardian
Very concerning high resolution model data coming in showing over 20 inches of rain falling in the mountains of SoCal over the next 48 hours.
This would lead to potential catastrophic flooding and is exactly why a rare High Risk for flash flooding has been issued by the @NWSWPC. pic.twitter.com/JMAnCUgRt2
— Colin McCarthy (@US_Stormwatch) December 23, 2025
Pandemics
The Case for Masks Was Made a Century Ago Pandemic Pages
China?
From Alsatians to autonomy: China seeks home-grown edge in police dogs Straits Times
China Issues First Penalty for Starlink Use in Territorial Waters gCaptain
China Is Worried AI Threatens Party Rule—and Is Trying to Tame It WSJ
The Construction of China Warwick Powell
Syraqistan
Israeli defense minister vows no full withdrawal from Gaza, occupied Syrian territories Anadolu Agency
Israeli settlers rampage across West Bank as army raids intensify New Arab
Libya’s top military chief killed in plane crash in Turkey Turkish Minute
Africa
The Catastrophic consequences of the Global War on Terror in Africa Propaganda in Focus
Old Blighty
Protest Matters Jeremy Corbyn, Tribune Mag
BREAKING: Greta Thunberg arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding a sign which says “I support Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide”
She was detained at the Prisoners for Palestine action at Aspen Insurance in London, insurers for Israeli weapons firm Elbit Systems. pic.twitter.com/3qBt3iRi9e
— Prisoners For Palestine (@Prisoners4Pal) December 23, 2025
European Disunion
US bans ex-EU commissioner, others over social media rules DW
Welcome to the EU dictatorship! Andrea Zhok
The new EU fascism explained by the German Foreign Office spokesman: pic.twitter.com/xEwbskgApQ
— Thomas Fazi (@battleforeurope) December 23, 2025
Germany’s far-right AfD accused of gathering information for the Kremlin Politico
A sharp change in rhetoric towards Russia indicates an imminent split in Europe:
First, Macron refused to support the European Commission’s decision to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, and now the Finnish president has admitted that Russia does not threaten Europe.… pic.twitter.com/ceiwFDSnsz
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) December 23, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
“What changed with the German Minister of Defense, and why did it change so fast?” Moon of Alabama
Russia to Win on the Ukraine Battlefield, Europe to Incite New Battles with Russia, the USA to Win the War for Global Hegemony Oliver Boyd-Barrett
***
Archive Lawsuit Opens Vladimir Putin Memcons/Telcons National Security Archive
Including classics that are still banging: pic.twitter.com/HWHLwU7hgW
— Dmitry Stefanovich (@KomissarWhipla) December 23, 2025
South of the Border
Coast Guard Pursuing Defiant ‘Bella 1’ Tanker as U.S. Blockade of Venezuela Runs Into Reality Reuters
US deploys special operations Aircraft and Troops to Caribbean Region Al Mayadeen
Venezuela accuses US of extortion; Russia and China criticise Washington’s conduct Channel News Asia
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo names Halliburton as one of the US corporations poised to enter Venezuela and “support” the people there by extracting their oil.
The planned takeover is described as an effort to impose a “capitalist model” on Venezuela.
In 2003, Halliburton was… https://t.co/X0FNR4Vzt1
— Wyatt Reed (@wyattreed13) December 24, 2025
L’affaire Epstein
Congress’s Incredible Wexner Silence: Was MAGA a Joke for Mega? Sam Husseini
Newly released Epstein files include references to Donald Trump The Guardian
Anyone going to bat for Michael Tracey at this point needs to be assiduously interrogated by a chainsmoking Stasi of Epstein Affairs officer until it is rooted out whether they are being a useful idiot or are willfully serving as Epstein nexus occluders. They’re aiding the ruling… pic.twitter.com/xAZxlylEYw
— ParaPower Mapping (@KlonnyPin_Gosch) December 24, 2025
Users on TikTok realizing they can just copy and paste the “redacted” text from Epstein file PDFs to read what it says pic.twitter.com/eboS6kOsqE
— Mike Rundle (@flyosity) December 23, 2025
Trump 2.0
Donald’s Deadly Sins The Sense of an Ending
Supreme Court blocks Trump effort to deploy National Guard troops to Illinois Politico
Trump administration to start seizing pay of defaulted student loan borrowers in January CNBC
Why Trump backs Bayer in Roundup weedkiller cancer battle DW
“Liberation Day”
Wall Street buying potential Trump tariff refunds for pennies on the dollar Reuters
US delays announcement of China chip tariffs until 2027 Straits Times
Democrats en déshabillé
Doing ideology the right way (pretending not to have one) https://t.co/27pADsF4Ov
— Matthew Sitman (@MatthewSitman) December 24, 2025
I cannot emphasize enough that Democrats were putting this man in charge of writing their version of Project 2025, their supposed north star for future policy priorities. And they did that *this year* https://t.co/8jaIlH16uS
— Lindsay Ballant (@lindsayballant) December 23, 2025
Our Famously Free Press
60 Minutes’s ‘Inside CECOT’ Unpopular Front
Imperial Collapse Watch
Chartbook 421: The end of American soft-power? From Coca-colonization to Fanta-ization Adam Tooze
Trump and his National Security Strategy: Is he turning US into a new East India Company? Firstpost
MAHA
HHS aims to accelerate healthcare AI adoption Becker’s Health IT
American food safety could be headed for a breakdown STAT
The MAHA base is in danger of fracturing as its agenda flails The Hill
Sports Desk
The Kansas City Chiefs Have Landed The Most Lopsided Stadium Deal In NFL History Huddle Up
Mr. Market
Economy
Consumer confidence slides in December as bad vibes about the economy persist Yahoo! Finance
Consumer spending drives fastest US economic growth in two years Semafor
AI
Two takes on AI and the future of America Gary Marcus
How The AI Bubble Bursts In 2026 Ed Zitron
Tech groups shift $120bn of AI data centre debt off balance sheets FT
Antitrust
Judge Rejects LinkedIn Antitrust Settlement Over Major Flaws JD Journal
Class Warfare
Don’t Cancel Sewer Socialism Labor Politics
Sanders Slams Private Equity Scrooges Ending Paid Holidays for Walgreens Workers Common Dreams
Oh, (Sigh) Christmas Tree Stevie Brooks
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Finland raises reservist age to 65′
So what exactly did Finland gain by joining NATO and blowing away nearly eighty years of neutrality? Russian resources, especially energy, are no longer flowing into the country which is having a serious effect on the economy. Some concerns have already been put out of business. Taxes will be higher as the Finnish government funnels money to the MIC and will no doubt eventually be cutting back on social welfare, infrastructure, healthcare, education, etc. like is happening in other countries. And just to put the boot in, Russian tourists are no longer crossing the border to pump money into the economy. Now they want to have a huge army, even if they have to take in much older recruits, and pay the huge associated costs. So again, what exactly did they gain out of joining NATO?
This measure conflicts with recent declarations by Finnish politicians, as mentioned above: “now the Finnish president has admitted that Russia does not threaten Europe.”
I am undecided: are EU leaders weather-wanes, closely following and repating whatever narrative comes from the USA (thus, Tulsi Gabbard states the Russian peril is overblown, and European heads of state immediately start parroting the argument)? Or are they merely beating a tactical retreat regarding the whole proxy-war with Russia?
What I am not convinced of is that there is a “split” among them. I suspect that the discord between Macron/Meloni and Merz results from the German chancellor being particularly dim-witted: he has not yet understood that the NATO/EU ship must perform a new manoeuvre. And yet, that ship keeps its course: those pronouncements about the reduced perception of the Russian threat have not led to any reconsideration of military budgets, rearmament projects, or the dispatch of forces to the borders with Russia and Bielorussia — or the reintroduction of compulsory military service, or its extension to 65 years of age…
Rest assured it’s just Finnish Minister of Defense wanting not to be left from the Wagon of Clowns. Decades back Finland downsized the wartime army to 280,000, and there’s no way Finland can arm an army of 500,000 within a decade, not to speak of one of a million men. Especially so after ordering 64 F-35s to suck the military budget dry for decades to come.
It’s just a meaningless motion by a moron who was willing to kick Russia’s teeth in only to wake up to the horror that it can’t be done and now he needs “deterrence” to be able to sleep.
Finnish economy was in tatters already before the sanction and NATO, because the centre-right parties pushed trough a huge social and health care reform that is proving to be just as expensive and badly thought out as every single expert predicted.
Maybe Finland thinks it has gained a second chance to enforce a blockade on St Peterburg and help out their big brother Kraut Nazis to starve and freeze the bulk of it’s population to death and force it’s starving citizens to eat the corpses of their frends and neighbours as they did when the city was called Leningrad.
Or maybe they just wanted to remind the Russians they live in a very bad neighbourhood chock full of Nazis all of whom, with the then exception of Sweden, chose of their own accord to provide military support to the the German Nazis as they went on the rampage to loot Russia’s resourse on and under her soil, just as their European progeny hope to to be able to do one fine day…
The Baltic states have shown their colours and I think it is time that the Baltic became a Russian sea even if it means setting up a whole series of Protectorates along the Baltic coasts.
Sweden didn’t? Sure they didn’t “officially,” bit those volunteers and iron ore say something different.
Finland is guilty of war crimes, but the Soviet Union did invade and steal land from Finland that used to be adjacent to Saint Petersburg or at the time Leningrad. It was only by both the incompetence of the Soviet military and ferocious fighting by the Fins that Finland was not effectively annexed by Stalin. This is why Finland was not annexed or subsumed like Poland and other countries after Nazi Germany was defeated.
The USSR took the vital parts of Karelia after the Second War so that the Finns were dissuaded from attempting to commit those vile atrocities against he ordinary citizens of Leningrad ever again. Poland was liberated by the Soviets and was the path that the Europeans and the US would take to the USSR in the event of an invasion, and vice-versa. When the US chose to build up its military in Westen Europe despite Stalin’s wishes that both the USSR and the US withdraw from Europe, the US refused. Hence the USSR remained in occupation, forced to spend good money on territories the only use of which was as a buffer zone and counter to what became NATO rather than on rebuilding its industrial base as rapidly as it had durung the twenties and thirties. And the time that President Putin has been in ofice shows just how effective Russia can be at growing its economy and technological capacity compared with a financialised West in decline.
The Fins called the second war with the Soviet Union “the Continuation War” with the prior “Winter War” of 1939-40 in which a tenth tenth of Finland’s territory was taken from them by the Soviets. Stalin had originally demanded both the Finnish territory adjacent to Leningrad as well as two islands and a military base next to the Finnish capital. The stated justification was for the better defense of Leningrad. The demands were likely to create a justification for the conquest of Finland.
The Fins refused, the invasion began, and it does appear that the Soviet intended to conquer the entire country, but the extreme casualties, plus the international opprobrium as well as the Fins suing for negotiations while they could still (barely) resist prevented outright defeat.
One can easily make the argument that the Fins did wrong by allying with the Nazis, but the Continuation War itself is fully and easily justifiable.
Wrong. Soviet Union wasn’t that incompetent nor the Finns that ferocious – the Finns accepted peace offer when it was obvious after three months that Finnish army was about to collapse.
Soviet Union was never really planning to subsume Finland, as it has never been that important for neither Russia or Soviet Union. “Finns are nature’s simple cousins”, has been the general conception since Peter the great and by themselves have not and will never be a threat to anybody. Nobody in Russia understood why Alexander I annexed Finland. It is still debated among the historians.
It’s when Finns allow the Germanic hordes (Swedes or Germans) to use Finnish territory as anti-Russian base or attack avenue, when Russia has to give Finland the bicentennial whack.
What comes to siege of Leningrad, Finns can be blamed for a lot, but St. Petersburg had been for 30 years the home of the Commander-in-Chief of the Finnish Defence Forces, Mannerheim, and he absolutely detested what the Hitlerites were aiming to do. So he kept the Finnish troops at the old border and banned firing at the city or flying into it’s airspace.
Of course, all the crime and guilt issues were settled after the war under the Allied Control Commission, which was making sure Finland fullfilled the conditions of the peace agreement.
Nowadays, depending on the tensions between the two countries (Russia and Finland), the Russian media either brings up the Blokada, or has stories how half of people of Piter identify as Finns or Carelians – to the extent of trying to learn the Carelian language.
Sorry for the wall of text and Merry Christmas!
Appreciate the wall!
I believe the Carley-Diesen conversation had a few bits on Finland/USSR too:
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/michael-carley-rewriting-ww2-historical?utm_source=publication-search
Carley suggested the Russians initially underestimated the Finns (2 weeks and we are done), got a bloody nose and then learned their lesson.
In Carley´s writing too it is stressed that the French pushed for a prolonged war. Which the Finns fortunately did not pursue.
Seriously? You have to ask? The right question is “who was paid off, ie ‘cui bono?’” I can’t answer that and the Finn governors may resist questioning but the answer will likely tell you a few things about Finland and how it has been changed in the past 80 years
One can wonder how much Russian tourism, natural gas, lower cost lumber AND the market weighted in Finnish economy, but unemployment went up by 2% to 9.6%, the budget deficit went up to above 4% (most frequently broken taboo in EU…) and the share of government spending in GDP went up to 58%.
What is even more ominous, the predicted number of children per woman in Finland dropped from already meager 1.6 to 1.3, and the same happened in Baltics and Poland (but not in Hungary!). Governments can convince citizens about dire danger from Russia, but that translates to pessimism and decline in the will to have children.
Taken together, one can ponder if we see a slow motion social implosion, or not so slow…
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the House
Not a Congressman was stirring, not even using a mouse;
The pix of Epstein et al had been hung by the DNC with care,
In hopes that another impeachment soon would be there;
Buckaneers were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of oil tanker sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And Karoline @ the podium, bearing a cross round her neck,
Had just scuttled their brains, lying again-what the heck?,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a black SUV and Stephen Miller approaching near,
With a bald driver so loathsome betwixt,
I knew in a moment he must be up to some tricks.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Now, Pete! now, Pam! now JD and Scott!
On, Kristi! on, RFK, Jr! on, Russell and Tulsi!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away immigrants! dash away! dash away all!”
As per efforts before, the tired triad tried,
When they met with an obstacle, ICE deployment in Illinois will not fly;
So over to the Home Depot parking lot the coursers they flew
With the lot full of day laborers, and likely undocumented too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard in a poof
The prancing and pawing of each little jackboot hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down came masked ICE agents with a bound.
They were dressed all in black, from head to foot,
And their reputations were all tarnished with many a lawsuit.
One of your best, Wuk. My digital cap is off to you.
Thanks RK, it flowed so easily…
Is this in the public domain? (As I feverishly copy & paste…
This atmospheric river is following the same timeline as the most catastrophic flood in the state for many a community last century, the 1955 Xmas event~
Kinda crazy how right around the same time as last year, LA is gonna get nailed bad, this time not raging wildfires taking out 16,000 houses, but horrific flooding and a large loss of life along with a like amount of homes destroyed in a cruel fashion, in that they will still be standing, and yet wrecked beyond repair.
Its almost better to have your house burned out down to the foundation, easier to start over with a clean slate.
Note to Angelenos with scant experience in such things:
You can total a car rather completely by driving into 3 or 4 feet of standing water, not to mention possibly losing your lives in the effort~
And if you are crossing a bridge, it takes about only 6 inches of running water to push your car into the river. Just slip, slide and away so don’t even try it.
I think it was in 97. Our only way home was the bridge across the river. It was pouring rain and already dark. As we approached the bridge there were cars stopped to the side and people flagging cars to stop and turn back. I looked at my wife and she said I want to go home. looked at the water across the bridge and it was not quite 6 inches. We were in a Honda Accord. I told her to open her door and I opened mine and across we went. The water was up to the gunnel but none came through. Went on home and made a fire. Later that night our septic tank flooded and overflowded the toilet onto the floor. That was fun.
Oh, and the next day both abutments of that bridge were completely washed out
Honda Accord had a European version as coupé in the 1990s which was my favourite car at that time although I never owned one (well I like Shelby Cobra and don´t own one either ;-P ).
Get thee onto the freeways. They’re mostly elevated.
Kim Stanley Robinson foresees how this plays out in Ministry for the Future.
For those who haven’t read it, the floods gut L.A., but the rebuild is with an eye to a sustainable future vs the land grabbing cookie cutter past.
Be safe.
The ‘river’ of rain hit Santa Barbara today. The Weather Underground indicates an increase of precipitation from 2.5″ at 9am to an 8″ total at 10am. I doubt it was 6″ in an hour. But the roads are all flooded. SB doesn’t handle rain well, and sea level rise is making it worse. Stay home and dry.
Code 503 busted link on archive to the LA Times Amateur Codebreaker Black Lotus and Zodiac killers…
Shutting down VPN, shutting down archive work-arounds. Merry Christmas, everyone!?
archive posted on their socials that they are having issues and will be back up soon. unrelated to VPNs
I read the article. It is fascinating. The believed culprit was a former WWII vet. The code breaking amateur sleuth spent years pursuing the ‘evidence’. I think he’s probably correct in his assessment. The ‘Zodiac/Black Dahlia Killer’ died in 1993 of cancer. He would’ve been near 70 y.o.
Ian Welsh: Google sucks, and every time I query an “AI” the owner loses money. I call that a win.
I hadn’t thought of it that way! What else have I reversed on this year? Well, I now hope Covid came out of a lab, since if it came from the forest, there’s likely worse lurking about. And in the face of evidence, the existential belief that Indiana University would not could not no never never have a good football team. Who knew?
I asked Gemini to “read”/describe all my comments on this website….I was complimented by its reply, lmao.
And NC probably got copyright violated
They’re bound to win one sooner or later…
“From Alsatians to autonomy: China seeks home-grown edge in police dogs”
When the Chinese say that they are going for autonomy,they are not kidding around. They seem to be determined to have no dependency on anything outside China’s borders so that it can be used against them and here it includes security dogs. And you can easily see the German Shepherd in these dogs-
https://www.dogbreedinfo.com/kunmingdog.htm
And I bet that they would make great pets too.
NC readers may want to read Nicolai Petro’s statement concerning jacques Baud’s sanctioning by the EU. Patrik Baab is writing a public appeal of support.
https://natyliesbaldwin.com/2025/12/nicolai-petro-a-public-appeal-for-jacques-baud/
Thanks, otherwise I would have posted.
It is essential to get this out as much as possible.
Public pressure is the only means.
In the Daniel Davis interview which I posted under today´s “Merz” article Baud explains that since it is a political decision by the Council there is not established legal way for him to challenge it.
Which is totally insane.
This is pure medieval despotism.
With the difference that the rulers deprive Baud of his money and not his freedom (at least as prison is concerned or internment).
Technically you are not even allowed to privately support Baud in a substantial way because that could help him ignore the effect of the sanctions.
There are no proper terms to describe this.
p.s. Sorry to hark back to the Chomsky discourse – but he was warning of this kind of nightmare in the 1990s as a possible negative outcome of what digital age could bring about. I never bought into that MLK slogan of the universe bending towards justice. But I did picture it different from this. And of course one can always argue “BRICS” or Multipolarity in a 100-year window. But that doesn´t help any of us here and now. (meaning Western societies.)
No problem, I did not know Chomsky said that.
He pointed it out under the broader context of one of his favourite subjects, corporate rule/fascism. And that digital space and surveillance technology if under such rule (pivate ownership that is) without any public control and pushback could go beyond our wildest nightmares.
But he did not just speculate on some undefined fictional sci-fi narrative but based for instance on the very concrete MIT-internal R&D in this area since the 1970s. To that belonged the warning of – which for too long I dismissed – tiny robots – today called “drones”. As LLM/AI/robots since the 1970s (or was this even ealier?) touched his very own scientific area of research.
However I am not sure he foresaw that his predictions would materialize within the framework of EU administrative powers by way of deplatforming via fraudulent free speech/hate speech labels.
Although this is why his radical views on freedom of speech I always regarded as a major safeguard for civil rights. Which is why “The First” is indeed No. 1 in the nomenklatura as “the most imporant”. (Even if the true reasons for it being first may be different ones.)
Baud was on Dialogue Works yesterday, I listened to it during my rowing this morning. He seemed in good spirits to me. He explained that his understanding is that the French government added him to the sanction list and it was validated by the European Council. He went through the various aspects that make it a very interesting and highly political case. Discuss and share as widely as you can. I listened in my podcast app but here’s the YouTube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNWKPJSYumA
At the end of the interview Baud was quite emotional as Dima pointed out the numerous comments in the live chat from well wishers, and I have to admit I got emotional myself. Very touching.
He also gets emotional when talking about his family which was in the resistance under Nazi occupation. These EU people are scum. I don´t know how else to call them.
In Germany even “leftwing” daily TAZ – staunchly pro-GREEN and anti-BSW and as of late very sympathetic towards THE LEFT since Wagenknecht left – had an article mentioning Baud´s case without actually confirming the EU nonsense.
Of course they are way too chickenshit and dishonest (and simply too incompetent) to call out the government and the Council for what this really is.
So they chose “Trump Trump Trump” as editorial exit ramp.
The last sentence is ending on something a reader could even read as irony. (OMG)
use google-translate for whole
The EU is extending its sanctions because of the war in Ukraine – for example to a former sheriff from Florida and a bestselling author from Switzerland.
https://taz.de/Die-EU-zum-Krieg-in-der-Ukraine/!6138328/
“(…)
Europeans extend sanctions
The adoption of new EU sanctions, however, proceeded without any problems. Although they are intended to target Russia, the Europeans are increasingly broadening their scope. For example, former Swiss Army colonel Jacques Baud is now on the sanctions list. He has published several bestsellers on Russia, Ukraine, and the Gaza war.
The official justification is that Baud acted as a “mouthpiece for pro-Russian propaganda” and spread conspiracy theories. He used techniques of “information manipulation” and “interference,” thereby endangering a third country: Ukraine. The EU levels a similar accusation against the Frenchman Xavier Moreau.
Evidence is lacking – as is the case with most sanctions against individuals. It is also unclear how a Swiss citizen and a Frenchman could have ended up on the European list. Now, even an American has been added: John Dougan, a former deputy sheriff in Florida who fled to Russia in 2016, is alleged to have spread disinformation online.
The accusation is serious – and it could prompt action from the US administration. President Donald Trump and his Vice President JD Vance have long accused the EU of restricting freedom of expression. This accusation is even included in the new US security strategy. The EU has rejected it, but is now itself fueling the debate.
European policy towards Belarus also appears poorly coordinated: shortly after the US eased its sanctions against the regime in Minsk and released more than 100 opposition members from prison, the EU announced new punitive measures against Belarus. The justification: repeated disruption of air traffic in Lithuania by balloons.
(…)”
So far the only establishment paper truly criticizing the sanctions re: Baud (BERLINER ZEITUNG is still too much fringe) appears to be rightwing daily DIE WELT.
However I haven´t read it yet (probably behind paywall and most likely missing major angles so to not question the larger narrative.)
Super Links today, Conor, thank you! Better link to the LA Times piece on the Black Dahlia / Zodiac cold case. Gruesome but fascinating. Merry Christmas to all at NC!
Working paywall free link for “An amateur codebreaker may have just solved the Black Dahlia and Zodiac killings Los Angeles Times”: https://archive.ph/m9mzE
In other murder mystery news: The Rest is History podcast takes on the case of Jack the Ripper: https://www.youtube.com/@restishistorypod/search?query=jack%20the%20ripper
#1: Nice! Thanks.
From the Balanced Weather substack,
[emphasis mine]
The goal is apparently to duplicate “historical” circumstances:
Luke 17:26-27 (RSV)
The verses immediately following the two above provided the plot for Don’t Look Up:
Luke 17:28-29 (RSV)
I’m sure the billionaires will be hiring some of those who’ve been laid off to provide “private” weather reports. We sure wouldn’t want one of them to be in one of their private jets where bad weather could bring it down, and even Bezos’s giant yacht might get uncomfortable for the passengers in our new “Category 6” hurricanes and typhoons.
Hmm. Wonton slashing? How the misfortune cookie crumbles.
Now, a *wanton* slashing I could disapprove of….
Especially if you’re slashing my wonton tomato!
Wonton cookies crumble, but actual wontons do not, soft and slashable. But since they are already small, “wonton slashing” stands for an activity of type “you can do it, but why you would even think about doing it”, and “ridiculous ways of showing one’a manhood”
“Welcome to the EU dictatorship!”
This article reminds me of something that Frank Zappa once said-
‘The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.’
And we are seeing this in the EU right now, up close and in technicolour.
Britain just arrested Greta for holding up a placard. Under terrorism charges.
So I’d say that the EU has company.
What if 10,000 Brits started wearing a button that said: “Action Palestine”.
That’s why they got rid of jury trials for crimes with under 3 years prison time. Jury nullification can be quite embarrassing.
Are terrorism charges resulting in less than 3 years prison time? I guess to utilize trial reform, His Majesty government should also invent “terrorism support of 2nd degree, punishable with prison up to 2 years and 11 months” or something like that.
(Sung to the tune of the traditional Welsh melody)
Deck the halls with words redacted
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Rag on Pam? You might get whacked, kid!
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Don will pardon Ghis and Clapper
Fa la la, la la la, la la la
(He’ll) troll the nation on the crapper
Bwahahahaha! Miss Kamala?
See the blazing boat before us
Fa la la la la, la la la la
Strike a chord, a droning chorus
Fa la la la la, la la, la la
Follow me in gunboat measures
Fa la la la, la la la la la la
While I plunder Chinese treasure
Bwahahahaha! Miss Kamala?
Fast away democracy passes
Fa la la la la, la la, la la
Hail the King, ye lads and lasses
Fa la la la la, la la, la la …
He’ll “deep six” the climate center
Just like Baud, messengers, don’t live long!
Heedless of the wind and weather
Bwahahahaha! Miss Ka-ma-la?
Well done sir!
Stochastic eugenics. That’s the public health policy of the Biden and Trump administrations, and so called progressives and the left. With a history of coronary artery disease, my father’s death is an intended outcome of this careless policy. Social murder.
Over 1.3 million of such deaths so far in the United States of neoliberalism. There must be some collective trauma from that kind of wide scale policy of careless killing.
May those responsible receive the judgement that they have so thoroughly earned by whatever powers may be.
In the United States, eugenics has been a thing across the political spectrum since at least the late 19th century. It is interesting to see similar phrasing on the poor, the handicapped, minorities, and what are considered as human scum for whatever reason, in today’s politics in books that I had on eugenics of the twentieth century. Heck, several of foundations and charities that are often listed as funders in PBS programs were prominent supporters of eugenics during the Progressive Era.
Thought this might be of interest:
Game Over: The End of Financial Regulation as We Knew It
https://lpeproject.org/blog/game-over-the-end-of-financial-regulation-as-we-knew-it/
re: Bella-1 refusal to be boarded by US Coast Guard in international waters
Recall how ships traversing the Red Sea and east African waters, in response to Somali piracy, adopted weapons, tactics and hired private security to defend against such? Will that be the next step?
I think a slew of the anti drone “dandilions” would make access to the deck problematic
https://www.odditycentral.com/news/russian-company-patents-dandelion-drone-protection-system-for-tanks.html
“florets”, well thats creative…
and without going into details I’d say there are quite a few ways to make accessing the deck quite hazardous. For instance I think cables and ropes are commonly found on seagoing watercraft.
Re Aaron Mate’s comment on Tracey and Epstein
This depresses me for many reasons. Aaron has been one of my favorite journalistic voices, perhaps my very favorite, for several years. But he has now made several similar comments regarding the Epstein issue. And on a related topic he has called for giving Chomsky “grace” on the Epstein deal because of the latter’s age and past service to the left. In a comment yesterday I warned about all the sketchy stuff coming out in the Epstein “releases” that would allow someone like Tracey to come along and “debunk” it. Well that didn’t take long, did it?
I don’t want to keep harping on this, but it is quite easy to take apart Tracey’s one-sided attacks on the Epstein “hoax,” and easy to show evidence of their dishonesty. He continually uses the same m.o. He selects the weakest and most easily criticized victim, victim claim, Epstein “researcher,” or Epstein researcher claim, or cited evidence, and then writes hundreds of words on his selected example – while ignoring reams of evidence that undermines his narrative. For example, in his smear piece on Whitney Webb he selected a comment she made in passing which was careless, perhaps, but minor, showed that it was wrong, and then used it to brand her a “liar.” In doing so he ignored all the significant claims, evidence, and references Webb provides in her books and articles (and can cite off the top of her head in machine-gun fashion in an interview) and instead simply paints her as a lying charlatan conspiracy theorist. But what really convinced me of his dishonesty was that in the same piece he continually cited the ridiculously self-serving DOJ “investigation” of itself in the Florida Epstein conviction as proof that there was really nothing to see here! Certainly if crimes were committed the DOJ internal investigation would have said so! That someone as knowledgeable as Tracey would not only take such a government whitewash seriously but treat it like Gospel Truth was to me a clear demonstration of Tracey’s intent. That Aaron would take him seriously is disturbing.
In spite of all the great work Aaron has done over the past several years, he has given me pause before. Once in an interview Ray McGovern brought up the Kennedy assassination and its historical impact. Aaron was clearly perplexed, then said something like (paraphrasing) “well, I don’t really know much about the Kennedy administration; most of what I know comes from two books: one by Noam Chomsky and one by Seymour Hersh.” My heart sunk, because in my view there have probably not been two books more damaging to the historical understanding of this crucial period for the “Left.”
I will continue to give Aaron the benefit of the doubt for a while. But I hope he employs the reason, analytic ability, and humanity he has demonstrated in other areas to educate himself here.
When I saw that I exclaimed out loud “Oh god no not Aaron!” so loud my wife came to ask what’s wrong. Distressing.
The m.o. you describe has been used forever to discredit people questioning the official fairy tale explanation of events where members of the elite could have been prosecuted for either complicity or gross incompetence. We saw it with JFK’s assassination and 9/11, and in the “limited hang-outs” over Iran-Contra. Yes, there will be weak and faulty arguments made by people questioning the narratives, in some cases seeded by insiders trying to make the “conspiracy theorists” look bad, but people on the left should be able to see through that and winnow out the chaff to get to the arguments and evidence that are not so easy to discredit via guilt by association tactics.
Remember how they did Dan Rather? It was pretty clear that Bush was a charlatan who avoided any serious military duty due to his family connections. Rather produced documents to that effect on 60 Minutes, and they were immediately debunked as fakes, thereby squashing the whole story. Bush got re-elected and the world is still on fire.
Anytime I see a public figure change their public views dramatically I figure either money or a threat got to them. It happened to social issues singers back in the day too.
The document dump all seems very selective for documents that are reports of rumors without follow up, general chaff, innuendo and photos lacking context. What isn’t ambiguous is inconsequential. No money trail or links to political payoffs. All a morality play with no look behind stage or reveal of the co-producers. Treats for mushrooms.
I’m pretty sure this is one of those cases where two things can both be correct at the same time.
My view, yeah, the great majority is real. But, the elite will manipulate sapects of the reality to their own advantage. Many heads *should* roll. But, see Ian Welsh’s “Madoff Rule.” The elite only have consequences when they:
1. Embarrass the rest of the elite, or
2. Steal from other elite.
They’re gonna try to burn Trump down as a patsy for this, guilty or innocent. That gives them cover to keep the light from shining on them while they ooze back to their child harems and continue their decadent ways.
So the poor, impoverished Hunts cash in as the dynasty comes to an end. Nice timing. In Cleveland, the Haslams are looting the public purse even though the team sucks perennially. These billionaires are getting too expensive to maintain.
And while I think of it, best holiday wishes to the beloved Commentariat, the faithful and ever-informative writers and link curators, and to our Yves, the linchpin of it all.
Better Mahomes and Gardens?
Won the internet you did.
China Is Worried AI Threatens Party Rule—and Is Trying to Tame It (WSJ via archive.ph)
Accessible.
A look at the GDP report
WHOOSH, Went the Economy in Q3. The Fed Needs to Watch Out, Economy Is Running Hot (Wolf Street)
It’s an interesting case study of how aggregates make things look amazing. Wolf seems to think America is going great for everyone. I dunno.
Other data and company earnings reports and popular media all talk about the K-shape.
With a highly financialized economy, spectacular GDP Growf can be achieved with just a few multi-billion dollar scams. With AI companies and NVidia booking deals with themselves, Space-X buying all those Tesla cyber trucks, the floodgates seem to be open.
I have taken stick over there for observing that macroeconomic aggregates hide all manner of misery in the lower quartiles of the income and wealth distributions. Such interrogation is most unwelcome on that site and it’s not entirely clear to me why.
Tom Murphy, professor emeritus of physics at UCSC, has a post up at Resilience.org about dualism. It’s essentially about worldviews and paradigms, and that’s where the action is according to Donella Meadows’s leverage points. Along the way, he makes a point about the maturing of worldview/paradigm:
This is the same point made by the late James Fowler in his books about stages of faith. Among Christians who share the same general worldview, maturity ranged from “there’s a man in the sky who rewards good deeds and punishes bad ones” to an understanding of the cosmos that included an appreciation for cosmic complexity and paradox from our limited perspective. This dimension of the maturity of a worldview is rarely considered, and that’s a shame. Many of our problems are the result of immature, narrow, self-centered worldviews.
My main takeaway from an anthropology major is that humanity drags a long tail. A great deal more is known about the universe we live in but if there is any statistical change in the various stature of man I can’t tell. You would think that percentage of man achieving higher states of being would have expanded in the last 10,000 years. It actually appears to have retracted.
“You would think that percentage of man achieving higher states of being would have expanded in the last 10,000 years.”
Just spitballin’, but…
The ones with less higher states take out more those trying to achieve the higher states.
That would start to have an effect.
exactly, nothing has changed
Two thoughts, first from your reference to Donella Meadows piece.
“1. The power to transcend paradigms.
There is yet one leverage point that is even higher than changing a paradigm. That is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that NO paradigm is “true,” that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding of an immense and amazing universe that is far beyond human comprehension….
People who cling to paradigms … take one look at the spacious possibility that everything they think is guaranteed to be nonsense and pedal rapidly in the opposite direction. Surely there is no power, no control, no understanding, not even a reason for being, much less acting, in the notion or experience that there is no certainty in any worldview. But, in fact, everyone who has managed to entertain that idea, for a moment or for a lifetime, has found it to be the basis for radical empowerment…”
This harkens back to an earlier discussion in links 12-6-25, IIRC. Most of the really good scientists I’ve known and worked with have this “no-paradigms” attitude, which is why Kuhn’s ideas fail to adequately describe modern science, in my opinion. (See also https://aiprospects.substack.com/p/when-ideas-round-to-false for how Kuhn’s ideas about science are an oversimplification that “rounds down to false” and causes epistemic damage.) However, the idea of paradigms themselves are perhaps useful in considering social environments in general such as mass psychology, where I think it does a better job of being a useful approach. Social philosophy for strictly social matters is a much better fit.
Fowler’s steps seem mostly true to me. I think I experienced these steps and daresay have gotten to the end of them. There may be other steps beyond, imho. I agree that
“Many of our problems are the result of immature, narrow, self-centered worldviews.”
and appreciate the link to Meadows as a useful examination of how one might go about being an agent of change.
On Dualism and Descartes, considered one of the fathers of modern science, and the father of Dualism:
I can not prove my theory about Descartes, because if his intentions were as I think they may have been, he could not write them down. I think he may have taken a look around him and seen what was happening to the budding enterprise of modern science. Religious sentiment was responsible for the deaths of many who would contradict the religous teachings that passed as explanatory but were empirically lacking. The Earth was not the center of the Universe; Jupiter has moons like our own; stars may be other suns like our own; etc… These new types of ideas could get you burned at the stake for heresy, and many were killed or persecuted for writing or talking about them.
Descartes’ solution? Give religion what it wanted and let the newly founded discipline of science have the rest: Mind-Body Dualism gets the church out of science and gives them say over ‘the soul’ but not the physical body and its environs, the Universe. This would eventually yield a reduction in the number of practitioners of experimental fact-seeking being burned at the stake. Could it be that this was a practical solution for Descartes, a life-saving one, and not a true position that he would have held?
When Descartes heard about the Inquisition’s prosecution of Galileo, he refrained from publishing a work he had already written that included a view that the Earth was not at the center of the Universe. His fear was real and certain.
OR, perhaps he was merely constrained in his thinking to begin with, and was truly under the impression that philosophy needed an ominscient creator-being. He certainly depended on the idea as one of the bases of his philosophical arguments, as written and published.
So, did Descartes separate religion and science into the two “magisteria” as Owen Gingerich used to call them because he thought that was the true best answer? Or was this distinction used to merely propagate a believable position to get the church out of the business of meddling in experimental fact seeking? Or both, maybe? Brilliant?!
When I read Discourse on the Method, which is basically an exhortation to question everything, I was struck by the weakness of Descartes’ argument for God. You could almost see him winking.
Thank you, Grebo.
I thought his argument weak, also, but wondered if it was just me. Or maybe just the times he lived in. But Descartes showed his genius in other ways such that this particular argument of his does seem incongruous to me…
Perhaps my thought is not entirely original, but it was original to me, afaik, so I thought I’d put it out there. Worth pondering, it seems… If one ponders such things.
The item about “redactions” on the Epstein files was amusing to me. I used to work for lawyers, and at least 20 years ago (probably longer) Adobe’s redaction routine was used for discovery documents that were meant to be presented to courts as real-life printed documents. The only thing was when people were allowed or ordered to present discovery documents as computer files, it took a while before people learned how to do the redactions correctly. Many a litigation were foiled or abetted by the receiving party opening the PDF file and unredacting (revealing) the text that was supposed to be hidden. Our routine was to redact a document, then photocopy it, then scan the photocopy and send the scanned results to the other side.
So I don’t know whether these Epstein files were redacted by incompetent clerical staff, or maybe they weren’t so incompetent after all (wink, wink).
re opening the doors…
It’s not so much letting water through an open sluice,
the issue is that tires are filled with air and a small compact weighs very little.
Check the report of the Calipari killing in 2005. (Wikipedia says “citation neeed” but I remember reading it in La Repubblica. Neither the US authorities, not the journalists seem to remember it.
It´s scary how much got forgotten since 9/11.
(Including the technical illegality of the “full scale invasion of Afghanistan” by US and NATO forces.)
But: Fortunately we have such sites like ZNET and DEMOCRACY NOW who I can warmly recommend on these older subjects. Their archives are full of items. Via their search engines.
On Sgrena there are several hits on ZNET:
https://znetwork.org/search/Giuliana+Sgrena
Like
Targeting Giuliana
by Jerry Fresia
March 11, 2005
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/targeting-giuliana-by-jerry-fresia/
first paragraph
“The top U.S. general in Iraq, Army gen. George Casey, has stated that the US had no indication that Italian officials gave advance notice of the route of the vehicle in which Giuliana Sgrena and slain officer Nicola Calipari were riding. As a former Air Force intelligence officer, I would argue that this statement is absolutely ludicrous. Based upon intelligence collection capabilities of even 28 years ago, it is reasonable to assume that the US intercepted all phone communication between Italian agents in Iraq and Rome, monitored such traffic in real time and knew precisely where Sgrena’s vehicle was at all times, without advanced notice being provided by Italian officials.”
Or DEMOCRACY NOW with a whole array of video interviews/reports from 2005-2007:
https://www.democracynow.org/search?query=Giuliana+Sgrena&utf8=%E2%9C%93
Like
Italian Journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Appeal Court Ruling Dismissing Trial Against U.S. Soldier Accused of Shooting Her and Killing an Italian Intelligence Agent in Iraq
October 30, 2007
https://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/30/italian_journalist_giuliana_sgrena_to_appeal
transcript included
Conspiracy theorists might think that they intentionally “forgot” it. But that doesn’t excuse the press.
And here is the US report, with the classified parts in yellow.
Thanks!
“Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo names Halliburton as one of the US corporations poised to enter Venezuela and “support” the people there by extracting their oil.”
Halliburton: One of the winners from the Vietnam war.
And Iraq (Cheney) and some more.
A bit on this:
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Halliburton
Congress’s Incredible Wexner Silence: Was MAGA a Joke for Mega? – Sam Husseini
Is this enough for the header to be changed from “L’affaire Epstein” to “L’affaire Maxwell-Epstein” – as I’ve often considered?
A couple of other random thoughts: there is probably a “new Epstein” already in operation and relieved at the focus on the departed one.
MEGA, MAGA, MIGA…try saying it really fast over and over again. Quite the tongue twister.
RE: “What Christmas Tamales…”
I greatly enjoyed reading this link. My sister makes tamales most every year, alone, and has a lot of trouble locating some of the fixings like decent corn husks for wrapping her tamales. This post suggests the importance of communal food making and sharing. I think it would make a strong antidote to America’s ‘bowling alone’.
Too much money, no productive uses
Investors Warn of ‘Rot in Private Equity’ as Funds Strike Circular Deals (NY Times)
I wanted to wish everyone here happy holidays. Keep close your loved ones, and never part in anger.
Stay safe out there!
re: Lindsay Ballant & Summers
What DNC project this year is she talking about? (NC must have written about this but I apparently forgot…)
I cannot emphasize enough that Democrats were putting this man in charge of writing their version of Project 2025, their supposed north star for future policy priorities. And they did that *this year*