Japanese town reeling from year of record bear encounters Guardian (resilc)
ADHD drugs don’t work the way we thought ScienceDaily (fk)
Oral bacterium tied to disability severity in multiple sclerosis MedicalXpress (fk)
After the LA fires hospitals saw a sudden surge in illness ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
Alzheimer’s Fully Reversed in Mice, Scientists Say Futurism
#COVID-19/Pandemics
SARS Cov 2 causes T cell loss for at least 22 months according to a new study
Sometimes I wonder if RFK's installation and pulling vaccines was meant as a smokescreen for surging illnessess as a result from covid. The so-called "leonardi effect" https://t.co/0trYzrz8tA pic.twitter.com/T4BvUGWTwM
— AJ Leonardi, MBBS, PhD (@fitterhappierAJ) December 30, 2025
US measles outbreak tops 2,000 known infections
The US total reflects 54 new #measles cases, as the country teeters on the brink of losing its measles elimination status next monthhttps://t.co/KPMMpJLKEy pic.twitter.com/I47sk2WB6n
— CIDRAP (@CIDRAP) December 29, 2025
Excellent review on the antigenic shift that resulted in the D1.1 subclade of H5N1 BirdFlu disseminating in the America’s.https://t.co/QlYSSN0G8I
It will supercede its milder cousin (B3.13).
It is more deadly in birds, mammals (cattle), and humans.
It will spread globally… https://t.co/yqFK9sWT35 pic.twitter.com/nLv8R49uQy— Dr Richard Hirschson (@richardhirschs1) December 29, 2025
Climate/Environment
Six climate stories that inspired us in 2025 Yale Climate Connections
‘Ghost resorts’: as hundreds of ski slopes lie abandoned, will nature reclaim the Alps? Guardian (Kevin W)
Nepal to scrap ‘failed’ Mount Everest waste deposit scheme BBC (resilc)
The Permian Is Drowning in Its Own Wastewater OilPrice (resilc)
China?
First and second largest economies in charts and figures Asia Times (Kevin W)
Xi Tests Trump on Taiwan With Drills Firing Dozens of Rockets Bloomberg
China’s Push to Master the Arctic Opens an Alarming Shortcut to U.S. Wall Street Journal. Above the fold.
China’s beautiful biotech chaos vs West’s elegant paralysis Asia Times (Kevin W)
Southeast Asia
Thailand and Cambodia agree to consolidate ceasefire in China talks Reuters
Cambodia’s Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn says Thailand and Cambodia have agreed to investigate the presence of 450 drones seen on the Thai side of the border, which Thailand claims violated the ceasefire and could affect the release of Cambodian prisoners of war.
Under the… pic.twitter.com/FNkoe07Iyd
— Thai PBS World (@ThaiPBSWorld) December 30, 2025
Africa
U.S. Forces Conduct Strikes Targeting ISIS-Somalia United States Africa Command. resilc: “Merrymakers.”
Trump Delivers Bombs for Christmas Daniel Larison
Old Blighty
French police unions block crackdown on Channel crossings The Times (resilc)
The Starmer Police-State Tarik Cyril Amar
Israel v. The Resistance
Israel has left nothing fit for life in northern Gaza. It has destroyed every concept and meaning of life. The devastation is immense, and the situation of the displaced is catastrophic. I don’t know how long we will remain like this. pic.twitter.com/US1NwjuPU3
— Omar Hamad | عُـمَـرْ 𓂆 (@OmarHamadD) December 27, 2025
Israel deliberately kills Palestinians using various methods, including gas canisters fired directly into their bodies. pic.twitter.com/s3XM2B7CUK
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) December 29, 2025
This afternoon in front of the illegal Israeli occupation base in Houla, we were threatened by the IDF over loudspeakers from the base. When we continued to film, a group of soldiers exited the base in our direction and came after my car in a tank. It is becoming increasingly… pic.twitter.com/zecKQjyraA
— courtneybonneauimages (@cbonneauimages) December 28, 2025
Dozens of Palestinian doctors graduate in Gaza ‘among rubble and rivers of blood’ The Cradle (resilc)
Shed a tear for Matilda Julian Macfarlane
Four major dynamics in Gaza War that will impact 2026 Responsible Statecraft (resilc)
The Nations Countering Israeli Influence Over Trump’s Gaza Policy American Conservative (resilc)
Israel might have found somewhere to dump Palestinians Ricky Hale and Council Estate Media
When resistance is constrained by its own government, this is how Israel interprets a ceasefire in Lebanon: destroying roads and infrastructure in the south, and operating in areas it did not dare to enter during the war under the cover of de-escalation.https://t.co/OzqfI4eUlb
— Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) December 28, 2025
* * Yemen cancels joint defense agreement with UAE, calls for immediate withdrawal of all Emirati forces Anadolu Agency
A significant escalation in Saudi-UAE tension in #Yemen. Saudi Arabia just carried out airstrikes on weapons & tactical vehicles it said were delivered to Mukalla port on two ships arriving from the UAE, calling it a “clear violation of de-escalation.” pic.twitter.com/oFXR20DKmX
— Nadwa Dawsari (@Ndawsari) December 30, 2025
* * Trump threatens Hamas, warns Iran of more strikes after Netanyahu talks Aljazeera. Note that Netanyahu had said he wanted the US to attack Iran’s missiles. Trump did not endorse that and stuck with the nuclear program as the target.
New Not-So-Cold War
US offered Ukraine 15-year security guarantee, Zelensky says BBC
Negotiations At A Standstill, The War Progresses Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
MoA Musings: Sachs’ Essay, Lavrov’s Interviews & Extraordinary Statement Karl Sanchez
Trump ‘very angry’ about Ukrainian attack on Putin’s residence RT (Kevin W)
Did Ukraine Try to Kill Putin? Larry Johnson
Eulogy For A Jewish “Nazi” Joseph Jordan
Armenia’s Next Parliamentary Elections Are Shaping Up To Be Another Flashpoint Andrew Korybko
Imperial Collapse Watch
Important (Chuck L):
— Chris Hedges (@ChrisLynnHedges) December 27, 2025
How Britain Destroyed The World To Stop One Train YouTube (Li)
Trump 2.0
MAGA World zeroes in on Minnesota over fraud scandal and Federal authorities in Minneapolis for ‘massive’ investigation into ‘rampant fraud’: Noem The Hill
Trump administration agrees to review stalled NIH research grants after lawsuit Reuters
Zionist Brent Bozell Confirmed as Trump’s Ambassador to South Africa Decensored News
MTG Says Trump Isn’t A Real Christian Daily Caller (resilc)
Supremes
Four Takeaways From the National Guard Ruling Steve Vladeck
Mamdani
Woke Watch
Liberals Should Read the HHS Review of Pediatric ‘Gender Affirming’ Care Newsweek (Anthony L)
2025’s Biggest Vibe Shift Ken Klippenstein. Klippenstein’s point is much broader but you can’t enforce wokeness with no norms fairies.
L’affaire Epstein
Taibbi and Tracey JOIN FORCES To GATEKEEP Epstein Files Discourse Due Dissidence, YouTube
Our No Longer Free Press
“Free speech and its enemies.” Patrick Lawrence
Economy
The Enshittifinancial Crisis Ed Zitron
Critical minerals are hiding in plain sight in U.S. Mines ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
AI
AI faces closing time at the cash buffet The Register
AI start-ups amass record $150bn funding cushion as bubble fears mount Financial Times
We might finally know what will burst the AI bubble Science Focus
Bernie Sanders criticizes AI as ‘the most consequential technology in humanity’ Guardian (resilc)
The AI Arms Race Is Cracking Open the Nuclear Fuel Cycle OilPrice
More than 20% of videos shown to new YouTube users are ‘AI slop’, study finds Guardian (Kevin W)
UK Accounting Body To Halt Remote Exams Amid AI Cheating Guardian
The Bezzle
Private equity firms sell assets to themselves at a record rate Financial Times
Class Warfare
Nearly half of Americans believe their financial security is getting worse, poll finds Guardian (Kevin W)
NYC slices now far more expensive than subway fare as ‘pizza principle’ disappears Gothamist
Slopes Are Empty as a Labor Dispute Shuts Down a Colorado Ski Town New York Times
Halifax video game workers form first Ubisoft union in North America CBC
The Bruising Reality of Searching for a Job at 65 Wall Street Journal. From last week, still noteworthy.
When I was 13, I carried a secret shame. We were so poor that I often went to school with no food. At recess, while my classmates opened their lunches—apples, cookies, sandwiches—I sat pretending I wasn’t hungry. I buried my face in a book, hiding the sound of my empty stomach.… pic.twitter.com/Vg8GIBSH9U
— Crazy Vibes (@CrazyVibes_1) December 28, 2025
Wall Street is stealing from volunteer fire departments Kevin Walmsley (Kevin W)
Antidote du jour (via):
A bonus:
Sheep gets stuck in tire swing pic.twitter.com/VEHd87dbso
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 30, 2025
A second bonus:
Attack! 😂 pic.twitter.com/pxlWie8xVK
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) December 30, 2025
And a different sort of bonus (Chuck L):
A soprano was singing her 4th encore, "Sempre libera" an opera number that has a tenor part, a young opera student spontaneously joins her in song when he noticed there wasn't anyone else singing it 😭😭pic.twitter.com/HHWPAkJxpF
— Restoring Your Faith in Humanity (@HumanityChad) December 28, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Israel might have found somewhere to dump Palestinians”
Is that wise on Israel’s part? Right now they have the Palestinians boxed up in the world’s largest open air prison. But once they reach Somaliland they might flee elsewhere. Who knows what groups they might connect up with and how they will put themselves to use. They might become mercenaries for hire who will spread themselves throughout Africa. They might get trained in drone technology and start to attack Israeli and US bases in Africa. They might also spread their political beliefs amongst the people of the countries that they travel to. And once you open up that can of worms, there is no putting it back.
What’s not to like about that plan for Israel? Having ‘Palestinian’ terrorists active in the world vindicates their genocide and will guarantee further support from the US and others. Not to mention the current open air prison is blocking construction of some sweet beach front condos.
And offshore gas field exploitation.
>>>NYC slices now far more expensive than subway fare as ‘pizza principle’ disappears
This is just as much a function of MTA deferring USD billions-worth of **routine**!! maintenance and upgrades as it is a story of food inflation, labour inflation, and rent inflation.
the NYC subway system will collapse one of these days (soon)….grab your popcorn as the Albany – City Hall clown car tries to blame Trump in 2030.
Why is that unlike infrastructure elsewhere in this third world country. The leadership of this country has internalized disruption. Uber lobbyists do not approve of public transport as they think it steals their money. Nothing in this country will be fixed without a privatisation scheme attached to it.
Uber is a case study who Democrats are complete hypocrites to their platform (clutching my pearls).
1. Non-enforcement of jitney laws;
2. starve public goods;
3. let the hoi polloi eat Uber while I serve as an Uber lobbyist/board member;
4. worse traffic, more CO2 cuz muh environment and Trump bad
Right?
And it’s just one example in a country drowning in fracking fluid.
And another example might be the current broken water mainline in a swamp north of Syracuse NY that wasn’t fixed this past summer during drought conditions. We wait to see how long it takes to pump out enough water to do the repair…
We had a really long Indian Summer and a fair number of dead trees along Mineral King Road that have been marked with a blue spray paint line, signifying that said trees were dead and need to be cut down, and some of them were marked nearly a decade ago, and dead trees typically last 10 years before falling of their own volition, but why not err on the side of caution and take care of business?
Well, you can’t as the manpower in the National Park has been decimated by Federal cuts, forget about cutting down trees you know all about that could constitute a hazard, like say next summer…
Bob & Betty Bitchin’ from Burbank and their lovely kids Truly & Trevor are driving along minding their own business in July of 2026, when their Plymouth gets whacked by a Red Fir with the ‘Blue Line of Death’ prominently displayed on what was left of Betty’s forehead, and the only survivor being Truly Bitchin’, whose lawyer sues for $325 million and wins, as the tree in question was marked in 2017.
re: Alzheimer’s Fully Reversed in Mice.
This para caught my attention:
“Regardless of the cause, previous research has suggested that Alzheimer’s is a form of inflammation. That means lessening or zeroing out inflammation in the brain would be key rather than managing symptoms. ”
This para interests me is because it lines up with another earlier story about reducing brain inflammation.
From 60 Minutes Australia ~13+ minutes.
‘Miracle’ drug giving hope to Alzheimer’s sufferers | 60 Minutes Australia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wAwQ6F7yWA
In the linked video the patient, Charlie, names Obama as president, evidently correctly at the time of filming. Perhaps I haven’t been keeping up and have missed something but it strikes me as odd that this treatment has not been more in the news.
Upon further rooting around I found this on Dr. Tobinick’s treatment from Science Based Medicine (2013): Enbrel for Stroke and Alzheimer’s. This was followed by another SBM article: Another Lawsuit To Suppress Legitimate Criticism – This Time SBM. It appears that there are some very good reasons that Dr. Tobinick’s use of Enbrel to treat Alzheimer’s has not become a standard of care.
The resort and its owner, Chuck Horning, a real-estate investor based in California, blamed the patrollers for the shutdown. In an open letter, Mr. Horning accused the patrol union of rejecting what he called “industry-leading, livable and sustainable” pay increases that would have raised the starting pay for patrollers to about $24 an hour.
~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s what you make per hour taking somebody’s menu request at the drive-thru of Taco Bell in Turlock… and would you like hot sauce with your order? Please pay at the first window and have a nice day.
As a did it for a year in my 20’s ski bum, and now well into my senior ski bum years, ski patrollers have always been the schizzle in that they’re atypically the best skiers (not many snowboard patrollers) and they have basic medical training, and are there in a relative jiffy all over the mountain, if somebody is hurt-with gurney sled at the ready to ambulance (I’ve yet to need one) them down the mountain.
They’re basically getting paid what a NFL cheerleader on the sidelines makes-with additional non-cash perks…
While all the real estate and short term imported wealth is being spread everywhere, but to the hired help on ‘skid row’ in Telluride.
Striking during Xmas break worked out perfect for ski patrollers in Park City last year, and they are certainly getting their message across.
Its not really mentioned in the article, but there isn’t much snow in Colorado, as evidenced by one of the photos that pretty much only shows manmade snow covering the ski runs only.
You’d never catch me on Xmas break, way too many people, and if they were all reduced to slim pickins’ on those slopes, oh me oh my would that be a castastroski
The bleakest snow amount on the la piste de la resistance at this juncture since 1976, from what i’m reading on the internets.
Here in WA state the snow pack is historically low, & most ski resorts have not opened. There are a couple months of winter left but I’m not bullish on us getting much snow in the mountains. Eventually it will be a real problem for farmers east of the Cascades.
onthesnow.com, a site for skiing conditions, lists California snowpack at 51% of normal, Utah 45%, Colorado 31%. Washington is at 28%.
It’s 60 degrees farenheit here in Denver, with highs predicted in the low 60s for the next week, then plunging into the high 50s.
This is not normal, nor is it a good thing. Most people, however, are happy about the “great” weather and low heating bills, and don’t think beyond that.
“Thailand and Cambodia agree to consolidate ceasefire in China talks”
There is an interesting aspect to this story. Last time Thailand and Cambodia were fighting, Trump famously took credit for ending it though it was probably due more to the Malaysians and the Chinese working behind the scenes. This time around when a truce was called Trump once more tried to claim credit for it though nobody believed him. But the Chinese have come forward and said that they helped put this deal together which includes Chinese sappers clearing out those landmines which set of the second conflict. So I wonder if the Chinese are going to do more of this heavy negotiating as time goes by in different countries.
French ICC judge censored and debanked
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/nicolas-guillou-french-icc-judge-sanctioned-by-the-us-you-are-effectively-blacklisted-by-much-of-the-world-s-banking-system_6747628_4.html
Holy shit, thanks for the link.
A broader look at this travesty-
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5461738-icc-judges-targeted-sanctions/
> Why should Britain rescue an enemy? Unherd
I could read it without needing archive.is, just using the Reader View in Firefox directly on the Unherd page https://unherd.com/2025/12/why-should-britain-rescue-an-enemy/
I agree with the author on this part:
Thanks, I did not know about that Reader View trick in FireFox.
One could use “reader view” on the LATimes website until recently. After clicking on the ‘text page” icon you then need to click the ‘refresh page” icon to fully load the webpage.
That article was written by a fervent Zionist and, judging by the appeals to King and Country, practically a white nationalist. Despite being named Sohrab. In this regard rather like Denys Kapustin in today’s links, the gay Jewish Russian finding fulfilment as a Ukrainian neo-Nazi!
I know nothing about El-Fattah but his mother was entitled to a British passport because that is how British nationality worked for centuries. Born in Britain ==> British and born of Briton(s) ==> British.
The alternative is a “jus de sang” mentality, where you have millions of socially excluded Turkish “Gastarbeiter” in Germany.
So Mr El-Fattah is guilty of thought crimes, naybe even speech crimes? So are countless British Zionists. And as for the Britons fighting in the IDF, they are guilty of actual war crimes.
It seems to me that the internally consistent approach would be to decriminalise speech and political views, not start stripping dual nationals of their citizenship because they disagree with Her Majesty’s Government. After all, HMG and its views are supposed to change every five years – or do we in fact live in a permanent one party state with one foreign policy…?
We have always been at war with West Palestine. Big Brother tells us so.
Obviously. Render unto Ceasar and all that.
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“MTG Says Trump Isn’t A Real Christian”
Excuse me. Are you the Judeo-Christian People’s Front?
He’s clearly a splitter from the Popular Judeo-Christian Front.
We’re definitely going to miss M T-G. She broke the first rule of being a courtier. Never tell the truth about the emperor’s lack of clothing.
I would spend a few more bytes lamenting how bad drives out the good in politics but that is the world we inhabit.
M T-G showed up just in time to be my new heroine addiction after our doyen from up north said no mas, and the first couple of years were fruitful of nuttiness, I have found me a home kinda malarkey-complete with many videos of her working out, hmmmm…
But she wormed her way not necessarily into my heart, but at least penetrated a few brain cells up top, for standing on her principles.
It is rare in general for a person to examine their priors, and come to the conclusion that they were on the wrong path, and try to correct that. Let alone a politician.
She’ll leave a void in Congress that will only be mitigated by one guy – Thomas Massie. It seems that the rest of the “Freedom Caucus” have disappeared into the ether.
I am work-adjacent to several GOPers high up in Georgia state government. They all say that MTG is genuine. They agree that the Jewish space lasers thing was absurd, but when it comes to politics on the ground she says what she means and means what she says. She certainly does not need the Current Occupant, and her family wealth from the construction business was earned honestly (mostly – hey, it’s construction, and I was adjacent to that in a previous life).
She’ll be back, sometime, somewhere.
From our beleaguered paleoconservative friends at The American Conservative, Giorgio Cafiero writes about the Gulf States and how they may influence the negotiations and settlement in Gaza.
The biggest factor in “Gulf States,” though, is Saudi Arabia, which has its own interests and hasn’t been great at resolving the issues in Palestine. And I won’t mention Yemen.
Interesting observations by Cafiero: “Their goal is not only to preserve the fragile ceasefire in Gaza but also to convince Washington to use its considerable leverage to pressure Israel into a full withdrawal from Gaza while preventing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. They also want Washington to restrain Israeli military operations elsewhere in the region, including in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and, above all, the Gulf itself.”
Wishful thinking on their part? Will the Gulf States get bilked and swindled by the U.S. government? It isn’t as if they have banded together to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, which is located right in their neighborhood.
The Iraqis are the wrong sort of Arab and are not pure Arabs like those in Saudi Arabia. You get this sort of Saudi prejudice against the Arabs of places like Lebanon as well.
“Did Ukraine Try to Kill Putin?”
Absolutely. The Russians don’t play these sort of propaganda games as the blowback is not worth it and already other countries like India have weighed in criticizing this assassination attempt. Of course the Ukrainians were involved but then that brings up the question of who was providing the targeting data. It could be the British but something on this scale is certainly extremely risky for them. But it could be a rogue deep state operation in the US with the same players that helped with the strike on Russia’s nuclear triad a coupla months ago. Certainly a Lindsay Graham would think it a fine idea to off Putin. However a moment’s reflection would show the folly here. Putin is at 80% popularity and they thought taking him out would solve all their problems? Can you imagine what would have happened if a Nazi assassination team had managed to kill FDR in December of ’44 and what would have happened afterwards? It’s not the first time there has been an assassination attempt on Putin’s life so I disagree with Johnson’s assertion that this was merely an attempt to embarrass Zelensky. Question is whether Trump was aware of this assassination attempt as he has a history of enabling such operations. But Russia will probably say screw the negotiations so we are just taking our territories with our military.
Lavrov just stated that Russia will revise it’s negotiation position (but not withdraw) as the “Kiev regime” has deteriorated to state terrorism.
Ukrainian media is a bit concerned about the fact that the allegedly targeted compound is also part of the Russian nuclear forces command structure, according to the Russia doctrine the attack can be considered as an attack towards the strategic missile forces – and a nuclear retaliation is allowed.
Also, Medvedev, the one to exacerbate the situation, has advised the population of Kiev to leave “the cursed city” as soon as possible.
To me, it seems that the Russian play at this point is to gain free hands from the actual International Community to deal with the Kiev regime as they see fit.
Those 91 long range drones flown against Putin’s Dacha were not really Ukraine’s!
In your post replace “Ukraine” with: “US neocons” who provided that drone “capability” to Kiev who cannot pay their own bills and who would need years to train up their operators.
I wonder what Lavrov really thinks. Those 91 drones that were sent to kill Putin were under guidance from US military satellite GPS systems.
Or maybe substitute “MI5 and CIA”.
One factor that is unexplained is that whichever western intelligence services were behind this stunt must know that Putin has been living in the Kremlin for several years now. At best it would have been a symbolic and futile propaganda stunt, and one guaranteed to ensure greater blowback from the Russian forces. Maybe the actual target was Zelensky as a dead man walking scapegoat.
It sounds like Dima believes Putin was at the location, and that was known to Trump and his staff because they had just spoken, so the betrayal of Putin’s location is thought to have emerged from within the US security services, and he was allegedly awaiting a further call from Trump. It is not clear if the attack was first launched just after Zelensky’s meeting with Trump ended, or if that’s when it started to reach its target. If they were launched while Zelensky was in with Trump, it would seem this was done behind both leaders’ backs.
Where does his family live?
And what would happen if UkraMI6CIA offed his wife and kids?
There would not be two bricks left standing one upon the other in Kiev. Well, maybe not Kiev. It does have strong historical associations with the original Rus polity. Perhaps then Lviv would do as the second-best abattoir here.
For a far out possibility, an Oreshnik on Buckingham Palace while the Royals are in residence? The symbolism in that would be multi-layered and profound. Imagine a Fifth International finally achieving active status.
Stay safe. Keep the Red Flag flying.
It´s fascinating how in German MSM everything Western intelligence services claim – as stupid as it may sound – is immediately corroborated without any questions asked. But now same MSM say Russians have no evidence and so it´s not true. (Hear, hear they demand “evidence”! What´s going on. I thought the term evidence has been abolished).
Neither of which is correct. Russians will provide evidence if they haven´t already (which will be ignored).
And if MSM had paid attention and done their work properly they would be aware of the modus operandi of MI6 and SBU.
I was just blocked by a prominent “democratic” BG journalist on X for pointing out that his faith in the infallibility and reliability of US intelligence is misplaced. It’s a mortal offense to point out to these stenographers that I am a veteran because intelligence lied about Iraqi WMDs and media amplified the lie.
Gender-affirming care, Newsweek article by Gorin and McDeavitt.
There are so many cultural issues involved in what ends up as “gender theory,” that I will try not to open up all of them. Suffice it to say, there have always been people who are two-spirits or hermaphrodites (to stop using the word “transgender,” a very poor descriptor). A great flaw in “gender theory” has been to pathologize circumstances that are not a disease. Gayfolk spent much time trying to get homosexuality out of the DSM, you may recall.
Pertinent observation: “In short, the medical practice now known euphemistically as pediatric “gender affirming care” is based on methodologically weak research that sterilized a group of gay or bisexual youth and left one of them dead. … Since then, thousands of well-meaning parents have been led to believe that medicalization is necessary for their children’s well-being.”
Here in Italy, puberty blockers are more or less blocked. The head of the Italian association of psychiatrists didn’t protest the decision either. He has written that we truly cannot understand a person’s sexuality till that person has gone through puberty. Fatto Quotidiano opened up its letters section and solicited advice from parents with children in this dilemma — almost uniformly, the parents got their kids into counseling. The result was few prescriptions and few surgeries. The use of FQ as a public forum was enlightening.
And: Yep: “The vast majority of these patients (62 out of 70) reported being exclusively same-sex attracted (gay).”
Hmmm. A while back, some women mentioned “lesbian erasure,” but that cultural faux pas was soon wiped out.
Ironically, Wikipedia has a wonderful entry on Tiresias who changed from male to female and back again, went blind, and was a prophet. This is the same realm as the idea of “two spirits.” And for Wikipedia, it’s downright poetic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias
It seems like an obvious problem that the ‘Gender affirmation’ used to treat Gender Dysphoria is really only changing a person’s sex. It seems like a lobotomy-style physical intervention in a problem of the psyche and social identity.
I also suspect that the current demographics in the US would show this to be an affliction of the affluent, where the adoption of an oppressed gender identity can reduce unsightly privilege.
The entire societal movement is extremely misguided. Gender is indeed fluid, and when I was coming of age you could as a female get a buzzcut and dress like a lumberjack but were still considered a woman. You could also as a male put on six inch heels and a flashy evening dress and attend the local Republican convention, as Dan Savage famously did back in the day, and still be considered a man. These people were gay and lesbian. Now if you do those things, it is suggested that you are really a member of the opposite sex and should take the appropriate medical procedures. You alluded to gay erasure….
One of my inlaws is a Stonewall generation gay man who has a nephew who identifies as trans. The uncle tried to tell him that isn’t how it works and dissuade him from any medical procedures. I learned a few months ago from the uncle that the nephew at one point told him not to worry because he still liked women and it wasn’t like he was gay or anything bad like that, which the uncle found extremely hurtful, and for good reason. There is something very disturbing about this widespread movement and it can’t end soon enough.
There will always be some two-spirits and they should be loved and not persecuted. But what has happened over the last several years is taking things way too far. Once an entire for-profit industry develops around these trends, maybe it’s time to reassess what we’re doing.
Yes. Way too Far. Like allowing past puberty, female identifying, males join female college swim teams. (Swimming fast is closely coincident with having a long, lean, powerfull (male) body-type.)
> The Enshittifinancial Crisis Ed Zitron
>> Every single AI app is subsidized, its price is fake, you are being lied to, and none of this is real.
Ian Welsh: Google sucks, and every time I query an “AI” the owner loses money. I call that a win.
No, Welsh is wrong. Using AI wastes shit tons of energy and is bad for the planet and makes the “owner” think the AI is valued and useful and so can replace workers. AI users should be ashamed and shamed.
“In reality, venture capital shouldn’t have touched LLMs with a fifteen-foot pole, because the margins were obviously, blatantly bad from the very beginning. We knew OpenAI would lose $5 billion in the middle of 2024. A sane venture capital climate would have fucking panicked, but instead chose to double, triple and quadruple down.”
I’m considering it all a power play. All using the same “make the world better” marketing hype. It’s about the power they amass with the money before everybody notices the mess being created. Then they start the same game over again with more “tech” in order to allegedly to fix the problems.
The money is used to buy influence and, as usual, the ultimate selling points are always “bring down the cost of labor” or “get rid of regulations” related to safety or sanity of any kind.
Some niche uses for algorithms for research purposes? That could be done without all the destruction ahead.
I hope it’s just an iterated grift. Two extended scenarios worry me – one is apex accelerationism, looking to crash and cull. The financier wing may be counting on federal bailouts, but the crash won’t be just figmented currency, there are real materiel/energy/water flows that could be beyond the magic wand to fix.
The other is that the dissociation is so extreme that one or some with power comes to believe in the superiority of the technology and becomes evangelical about it.
A general thanks to raspberry jam for drawing clear distinctions between LLM’s and crafted applications. This is starting to feel similar to vaccine issues, where distinctions get muddied and politicized, somebody is making serious bank, and we end up with a measles oubreak.
Zitron’s article is better read with the soundtrack he recommends. Free Bird is great!
From the Science Focus article “We might finally know what will burst the AI bubble”:
So… bubble? Not yet a bubble? …?
Eulogy for a Nazi – anyone have info on the author, Joseph Jordan? The substack profile is unhelpful, so I did my homework and ended up in places i don’t usually go – a cyberscape of confusion, like the world-view criticised in the article.
“The Permian Is Drowning in Its Own Wastewater”
The thing that concerns me about this article is all this talk about wastewater and where to dump it. Forgotten is the fact that this was once just regular water that could have been used as drinking water, as water to grow crops and also to give to livestock. But now? The Pyramids could crumble and that wastewater would still be highly toxic and could never be used for anything. Probably find that one day too that places like the Permian will become “forbidden zones” for people as the place will be just a wasteland.
Correction.
The produced water being talked about is subsurface brine water from the actual oil and gas substrates. It comes up combined with the oil and gas. It was never useable in the first place for humans, animals for crops.
It shouldn’t be confused with fresh surface water that is used for fracking.
beat me to it,lol. its leftover seawater from millions of years ago when the Permian(and much of Texas) was an inland sea.(which is also, btw, where the frac sand under my feet came from…anciet beaches from that same inland sea.)
there a few pockets of more or less fresh water in west texas(balmoreah, and hueco tanks come to mind…as well as the davis mountains)…but from maybe 70 miles to my west and going on westward, the groundwater is “brackish”, at best.
in san angelo, the tap water tastes like you’re right on the intracoastal.
And it’s not a problem unique to fracking. The Permian wells were producing saltwater, and it was being dumped into non-producing wells or specially drilled disposal wells at least 50 years ago. I’ve told this story before, but it’s quite relevant to this piece, so here goes.
As the 80s began, I was a 20-something associate in a Santa Fe law firm that represented several oil companies before that state’s Oil Conservation Division, including then members of the Seven Sisters ARCO and Shell, along with some smaller companies. Most of the independents were represented by a father/son law firm. My first (and only) summer there, the three other members of my section all went to an oil and gas convention being held in beautiful San Diego, so I was drafted to represent ARCO in four cases being heard before the OCD while they were gone. Another lawyer, a friend of the firm because he was married to a senior associate, helped me prepare the witnesses, who were geologists and geophysicists, for the hearing. I was to learn the ropes during that prep process.
The day of the hearings arrived, and even the setting was a little intimidating. It was a fairly small, rectangular room with a large table in the middle. The participants in the case currently being heard and the hearing officer, one of twelve or fifteen heard in a day, sat at the table while everyone else there for a hearing that day sat in chairs set up around the room’s perimeter. The first three cases went fine, but then came the fourth. It was an application for a salt water disposal well for ARCO, and the witness was an older fellow about ready to retire. He had some nice charts, and in the middle of offering these into evidence, the lawyer from that small firm, representing an independent who had a producing well close to the proposed disposal well, began his cross examination of my witness, and he destroyed my witness completely. It was a humiliating experience for the witness and me.
Thankfully, that was not the end of my OCD experience. Despite that calamity, I became the designated OCD guy in the firm, and I vowed to never let another of my witnesses be destroyed like that. On one occasion, I was preparing four newly minted Texas Oil & Gas geologists for a hearing the next morning. Three of these fellows were vets, but the fourth was an OCD virgin. As I was preparing the rookie, he cried out, “Whose side are you on?” His colleagues laughed and explained he’d be happy for the tough preparation when he got “in that room.” Their cases, including the rookie’s, went fine.
My last OCD case was not a saltwater disposal well but a slant drilling case. An independent, represented by the same fellow who had originally trained me, wanted to slant drill a well on his lease that was adjacent to Shell’s water flood project in the Hobbs Unit of the Permian. From Shell’s point of view, this indie was trying take unfair advantage of their expensive secondary recovery efforts, and they opposed the application. During his testimony, as he attempted to justify why he needed to slant drill, he made a logical error, something that was probably noticed by a number of people in a room full of nothing but experts. I caught it too, and did to that poor independent what had been done to my ARCO witness four months before. Just as I had been on that occasion, the lawyer who had trained me and who represented the independent was powerless to stop the disintegration. The OCD granted him a permit to slant drill–with a 90% penalty. The well was never drilled.
As I pointed out in a comment about Pennsylvania fracking wastes yesterday, the real issue in these cases is not the public health or, of course, the planet’s health. Those interests are not represented except in passing. The question is whether the proposed project will damage another specific producer’s interests or even damage the field more generally, the concern that originally prompted the idea of regulation. You can see that in the Linked article itself:
If we added people to that room or the room where the Texas Railroad Commission meets who would represent the public interest and provide evidence from hydrologists, etc. about effects on ground water and other matters affecting public health and other interests, it would help.
Of course, if we care about the Earth, we’d shut down those hearing and issue no more permits.
Thank you HMP. That was an interesting reading. In reply i leave a link for a salty geyser erupting in the Permian. Watch the pics! The geyser gets sealed and salty water keeps surfacing for years.
It’s a very destructive business from production through consumption through its waste products. It’s a lot like that apple in the Garden. It looks like good eating until it hits your stomach, so to speak.
….. So, what’s stopping them from using the brine water they can’t get rid of instead of fresh water for fracking? Or is that just too obvious?
No it is not, they add proprietary concoctions that give the fluids the properties needed to lower the cost of production.
So we do not know what is in the replaced fields.
Sounds like the Permian basin would be a great spot for information-polluting data centers – using water filled with secret cocktails of polluting toxic fracking chemicals.
“Private equity firms sell assets to themselves at a record rate”
The logical endpoint of “the greater fool” principle … 🤨
(plus more tasty fees)
Ed Zitron is an optimist!
I suspect the delays, cost overruns and huge costs to build and run data centers will put an end to the idea of building super computers for google searching as a profitable scheme.
Two basic flaws: AI is rather an information tech evolution ignoring logic flow and questioning processes to achieve “intelligence”, and trillions in data centers won’t be paid by the incremental increase in IT utility.
LLM’s running through proprietary GPU algorithms are sending aircraft carriers out to do a row boat’s job.
hell with the rowboat…lets just educate and hire humans, instead.
and pay them well.
this is the same nonsense that drove labor arbitrage, back when, but with too much ketamine.
The entry in today’s links from the Register “AI faces closing time at the buffet” features a heavily up-voted comment that makes a great point:
So it’s not as simple as “fire and replace” a worker with an “AI agent.” The CEO is going to have to sign off on re-engineering the entire business process. And bet that it doesn’t go south. Good luck with that!
The other issue I can foresee is that you can’t fire an AI agent. I used to work at a brokerage firm in the IT department, and making any change to production that took down the server farm where all the trades got processed was a fire-able offense. I don’t see CIO’s just accepting that they can no longer fire anyone who impacts the revenue side of the business.
And I haven’t gotten to the security issues around identity and authentication/authorization for AI agents … maybe the plan is no authentication at all, and just hope for the best?
Managed data does not need ‘data bricks’….. or whatever new buzz the uninformed salesmen of AI are peddling!
Businesses with orderly internal data systems do not need LLM’s!
Business w/o orderly data systems would find LLM’s reading inappropriate data, no improvement!
LLM’s will not solve problems with outdated data and data w/o verification!
I was an optimist once, a long time ago.
welp, GF.
thats on the door to the kitchen at the Wilderness Bar, now,lol.
and i signed/assigned it GF.
Private equity general partners sell the assets of a set of limited partners to an overlapping set of limited partners and extract 20% of the profits in cash on the way.
That’s really what’s happening.
They also get to re-start the management fee, prototypically 2% of assets under management, although bigger commitments = lower fees. Those normally drop after the first five years into the fund. Management fees are a much bigger component of total profits to a GP in normal times. By contrast, GPs sell or do dividend recaps of the good deals in a fund early on, since that gooses IRR and facilitates raising the next fund. So I doubt that there would be all that much in realized profits in these sales of dogs left in the tail of a fund.
Fair point well made. The management fee is substantial, even if lower for a continuation fund (no active investment period) and for larger funds.
But my understanding of continuation fund portfolios is that these companies are ostensibly winners, on paper. They just mysteriously cannot be sold for cash. Too early mate, gotta ride our winners, market conditions etc.
So the GP is convincing the old LP’s to roll their paper gains into a new 5+ year lock-up, with some new cash on top from new LP’s buying into the deal. Admittedly the GP is probably required to roll their carry into the deal too, at least in proportion to the extent old LPs are not cashing out (and within the GP, retiring GP partners will be demanding cash and forcing the young Turks to take the paper, LOL).
If the continuation funds comprise publicly admitted dregs, rather than pigs in lipstick, we’re in a higher level of pain than I dreamt!
The point I was trying to highlight for the unfamiliar is that structurally the LP’s in the funds of a marquee name GP have a difficult choice. These people are the real money investors – pension funds and asset managers – and their problem is capital allocation, not capital generation. It is not like the world of you and me. The money keeps flowing in each month. They have to get the filthy lucre out the door and into investments consistent with their allocation strategy and manager selection, all largely driven by consultants. So they can pass on the continuation fund of a brand name GP but they may find their allocation to the next primary fund cut….
The result is that these continuation funds are largely the same specific investors and certainly the same generic investors – and ultimately everybody’s retirement savings. It is a human centipede of capital.
Only the GP’s, who are individuals, get to step off the carousel at the right moment, the others are structurally bound to keep riding….
It is not clear whether the management fee in the continuation funds is actually lower than during the step-down period. The GPs play a lot of games with management fee offsets, too and those may be tweaked to their advantage in continuation funds.
Nepal to scrap ‘failed’ Mount Everest waste deposit scheme BBC
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What a pig sty that area is, and if you go up high enough… complete with cadavers en route, while you are waiting your turn in a line near the top of Everest that kind of resembles the one while waiting for the bobsled ride @ Disneyland in the 60’s and 70’s
I’m content in my ‘Half-Pint Himalaya’ (Mt Whitney is exactly half as tall as Everest) where there is never any trash strewn about, nor corpus derelicti laying prone in a death pose// clad in Chaco sandals, shorts and a t-shirt, with cheap sunglasses affixed.
It costs some serious jack to climb Everest, around $60k…
Here you can have all the adventure you’d like in the back of beyond for a measly fifteen bucks for an overnight wilderness permit, but no Sherpas, you gotta do all the heavy lifting.
Ansel had mules.
The Nepal thing is nuts and they should put a fence around Everest but climber tourism brings them the bucks.
“Decline and Fall”
Some things don’t change – like how the elite of a society will deliberately neglect the lower classes – and then proceed to criticize how they turned out. Mentioned a long time ago about an American reporter/author named William L. Shirer who was stationed in Germany until Pearl Harbour. He went out to France to cover the war at one point and saw something that left a deep impression on him. A column of British soldiers was being marched along a road by their German captors. The British soldiers were mostly skinny, pasty-faced and hollow-chested which was a sign of the neglect of them by British governments over the decades. The Germans, on the other hand, were hale and hearty with deep suntans because their government encouraged healthy living and outdoor living. Sure, they had their own motivations for doing so but the differences between the British and Germans were just too blatant to ignore
“their own motivations“ were the need for healthy cannon fodder that thinks of himself as a superior race, while it kills of the Untermenschen at home and in the east.
Japanese town reeling from year of record bear encounters Guardian (resilc)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
13 deaths by bear in a year in Nippon, yikes!
An elderly lady was killed by a Black Bear in California a few years ago, the first human dispatched by that variety of bruin in almost 175 years as a state~
A recent bit on North Carolina public television said that the NC coast is chock full of black bears–far more than the NC mountains–and people should simply get used to seeing them.
In the Smokies a mother bear with cubs did kill a woman years back. But you are probably in more danger driving through the Smokies.
‘Crazy Vibes
@CrazyVibes_1
When I was 13, I carried a secret shame. We were so poor that I often went to school with no food. At recess, while my classmates opened their lunches—apples, cookies, sandwiches—I sat pretending I wasn’t hungry. I buried my face in a book, hiding the sound of my empty stomach. Inside, it hurt more than I can explain.’
It’s a good story this but the real story is that you have hungry children going to school with no food to eat being unnoticed by the system for decades now. Sorry but if a society does not seek the welfare of its children foremost, then it is a failed society.
I went to school in the UK, when my father was unemployed we could get free school dinners, that was the best food I had ever tasted….I hated when he found employment and we had to go back to french fries at home. We also got 1/3 pint of milk a day at school…also the only time I had milk
Wasn’t it Maggie Thatcher that got rid of free milk for school kids? Can’t let those plebs get anything good.
Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher!
She was Education Secretary in the Heath government in the 1970’s when she earned this soubriquet. I received the school milk in the 1980’s so I had to check what transpired and it turns out she restricted the milk ration to nurseries and primary schools.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/uk_confidential/1095121.stm
Oops, forgot to post the link!
I am shocked to read this. I know about how transformative free school meals are – and how stigmatising it is, they should just make them free for all pupils – but I had no idea children would grow up without milk if it were not for free school milk!
I grew up with the free milk. At my school, Milk Monitor was a job on the rota in Upper 2 (aged 10), the final year in primary school. The milk was delivered as dozens of glass bottles with foil lids in big blue crates. The crates invariably had spilt milk on them from the transport process and they were left sitting out until morning break, c. 11am. As a result the milk was warm and the crates stank of sour milk. :-(
I know many people who cite that experience as putting them off milk. I still like milk but I certainly preferred the job of turning the wall-mounted alarm bell for fire drill!
The big issue with this is the ability of – all children – too achieve their innate potential and via that its reflection on society later in life. This is the argument some have made in the past and today. There are very long studies on this. Elites in the West see this as a threat to their control over everything and then history repeats …
The Bruising Reality of Searching for a Job at 65 Wall Street Journal.
If you are 65 they don’t want you. Period. I think that holds true for most industries but I’m sure it depends on what it is. In this ladies case, she is general labor so she “might” have it a little better.
I was in engineering. Was laid off at 59, along with over 100 others. Found another job but was laid off again at 62. Then nothing. They don’t want you at that age for several reasons. 1) you are too expensive wage wise (top of pay scale). 2) You are old and liable to miss more time due to health as well as potential health care cost depending on benefits. 3) You are too set in your ways – IOW, they can’t train you be an ass kissing yes man. 4) They can ship my job to China or India and get 3 of them for one of me.
On the other hand, I couldn’t work in today’s world. Mostly because of number 3 above. I refuse to be an ass kissing yes man, and I no longer have the patience for corporate or individual stupidity, which runs rampant in so many companies today. Doesn’t matter anyway. They love my resume until they find out my age. Then crickets…
I love how it ends on this hopeful note, even after it becomes clear that she’s really, really screwed. They could have ended it on the local food bank probably being decimated by all the demand, or the increasing costs of cooling during the winter, or the additional weight of new medical bills. I wonder how old her car is? Have property taxes, homeowners insurance, and auto insurance gone up? Is social security annual increases keeping up with inflation?
And this is so true
I’ve learned the value in just smiling and nodding.
No one believes me when I smile and nod.
I could never do that and it cost me a lot of money over the years.
In my yearly review one year my boss told me in a five minute conversation that if my “people skills” would have been better I would have gotten a 1/2 percent higher raise. He took five minutes to explain that as nicely as possible without insulting me. I wouldn’t have cared, I’m a big boy.
So I asked him, “so your telling me if I had better people skills I would have got another 1/2 percent?” Why, yes, that’s exactly what I’m telling you.
Wow! How about that. Well, for a pissy 1/2 percent I’ll continue to be a prick.
That ended the review and I went back to work. All I wanted to do anyway.
At a company I know, if you’re in the top 1% performance for the quarter, your quarterly bonus is 50% higher. For the quarter. So maximum effort for at most a few extra thousand dollars. And probably in the hundreds.
Hard pass.
bad teeth taught me not to smile some time ago…
and nodding bothers that old neck injury.
so i just glare at people with my crazy eye.
another western haiku, a la kerouac.
Yea, the article did end a little strange. I kept waiting for the good ending that never came.
I still watch the job adds, and apply once in a while if one jumps out at me. It’s crazy though. I talk to people in the industry who tell me how hard it is to find competent people. So many tell me people just can’t do what they need for the job – yet a guy like me with 40 years of experience could do them wonders – yet, here I sit.
IMO, companies are so screwed up they don’t know how to hire people. I have difficulty with the original phone interview. I know what I want, and what I don’t want. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time (including mine) so I spell things out right up front – we are a match or we are not – right off the bat. They can’t answer half the questions I ask. You can tell they know nothing about the job or what it takes to do it. Save all this horseshit and let me talk the the guy I’m going to be working for, not some HR crony who likes to sound smart and important but are neither.
And if the original phone interview is that bad chances are I won’t like working for them anyway.
My favorite interview might have been at a popular business messaging company, where the recruiter’s first question was what are my pronouns. I actually bungled that question. It went down hill from there.
For the interview for a contractor position at Amazon, where one of the first questions is tell me about a time that you went above and beyond for a customer. And my first thought was, well, add that level of performance as a job requirement with commensurate pay and I’ll do that. But I honestly couldn’t think of any. When I asked how many questions like this that there were, the Amazonian grew annoyed and I politely told her this isn’t the job for me and quit the Zoom.
I don’t think she’d ever have someone just hard pass during a call before.
Tell me three adjectives that describe you is a fun one too. I couldn’t think of any. That interview pretty much ended. How about perturbed, annoyed, and askew?
The article sounds like it is promoting the new and improved “Abundance” brand dog food. I’m still not including it in my dinner menu.
When I smile and nod, my interlocutor often calls Security.
I think 5) you won’t stick around long, you’ll just retire – when the average length of service anywhere (for whatever reason) is about 5 years.
When TPTB have broken the social contract, especially by shipping jobs overseas, I see no reason for former employees to continue to play the old game and that they can play by their own rules.
I think 5) you won’t stick around long, you’ll just retire
I think this is also true.
In the early days of the Pandemic, there was much pearl clutching about “over employment”. Working class people have been over employed for decades to make ends meet. The moral panic was over white collar tech workers doing it and earning enough to possibly escape wage labour entirely. I find this the ultimate expression of an individual laborer, merely selling as much of his labors as are available. Isn’t this what wage labor is all about? It’s what the industriousness of the American worker ought to be all about! But don’t be too industrious!
This is a real problem. America is leaving a lot of talent on the sidelines. Medicare for All would go a long ways towards fixing some of this.
Sticking American companies with the cost of healthcare is a real problem; re-industrialization would be much easier with Medicare for All. I’ve seen more than one good local business give up and call it quits because of healthcare costs, but this is probably viewed as a plus by the American mega corporations that view crushing any possible competition as a positive.
I do agree that the workplace has changed over the years. For lack of a better way to put it, if America wants to win this new cold war, just figure out how to get Russian and Chinese CEOs and upper management to act like American CEOs and upper management – that’ll wreck em! (Just like it wrecked America.)
Re Oilprice–nuclear fuel cycle
Alex Cockburn was much scorned a couple of decades back when he claimed AGW fears were really a plot to revive the nuclear power industry (which didn’t happen in this country in any case). Now the Futurists are themselves threatening to bring back the nukes to entrench their latest off the wall idea–AI. Perhaps the future should have fewer Futurists.
Problem solved?
RE: the Klippenstein piece, subtitled “Decorum is dead”
I’m of two minds about this and I guess i don’t take the lack of decorum as seriously as Klippenstein does. We used to have the concept of ‘noblesse oblige’ where the aristocrats were expected top provide some benefits to the rest of us in exchange for the privileges that allowed them to remain rich. If the tophat types remain civil and also distribute concrete material benefits, many might not like the overall situation, but they can live with it.
But that concept went out the window a long time ago. I’ve gotten pretty sick and tired of demands to remain civil while being raked over the coals by elites only in it for themselves. The lack of decorum can be beneficial as it shows people how things truly work. Klippenstein cited Trump’s public dressing down of Zelensky as an example of decorum going the way of the buffalo, however Trump showed the USian people in public what usually goes on behind the scenes – the leader of some small country being given their marching orders lest the US throw their tiny nation up against the wall pour encourager les autres.
And I am truly puzzled by this example of a lack of decorum, especially coming from Klippenstein-
“From Donald Trump humiliating Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office (even declaring it “great television”!) to Zohran Mamdani saying he would not visit Israel, the supposedly immutable laws of what you can and cannot say in politics no longer apply.”
I thought it was highly appropriate for Mamdani to say his job was to govern NYC and he didn’t need to visit the Zionist entity to do so, unlike the other bootlicking candidates. One hopes the Zionist entity hasn’t gotten to Klippenstein and Arkin.
add in the latest utterances of matty yglesias(idk care if im spelling it wrong)…which have elicited volcanic sarcasm all over my twitx feed.
“pity the poor billionaires…”etc.
meanwhile, my tiny teachers pension runs out in another 2 years or less, and then i’ll have 4 years til im able to get on social security…assuming thats still there,lol.
let musk or altman or any of those f&ckers walk a mile in my shoes for a week, live as i live, and then complain to me about how down and out they feel.
what they “earn” in ten minutes would last me for more than a year.(and likely several years, but im too tired for math)
Interesting Unherd interview of Yanis Varoufakis about the growing problem of AI fakes. Yanis claims a friend complimented him on a recent Youtube, and when Varoufakis went to check it out, it took him two minutes to figure out that it wasn’t really him. He also discusses his mainly futile attempts to shut down these sites.
file under: no longer free press.
Jimmy Dore show, utube, ~17+ minutes.
Briahna Joy Gray SUSPENDED On Instagram For Criticizing Israel!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONECzrf03Bo
Kind of puts the “Klippenstein piece” to bed as a pile of BS i am guessing.
RE: antidote
Hmmm, scat sniffing for scent of the New Year?
Jeffrey Sach’s “Boeing Flees to Canada” is worth a listen, even though its pretty long (22 minutes). It shows how how the anarchism of the Trump administration is further destroying the US, and why the Trumpian form of populism and tariff policies are empty, in terms that will appeal to the NC folks. It takes him a while to get around to Boeing, because what he is really talking about is how labor is treated in different national settings, and why the US needs to wise up. It seems heartfelt. The only thing missing is maybe an observation that the popularity of AI with US elites is intended to do to the middle class, what the strangling of unions and war against just treatment for labor has done to the working class: It too hopes to bring community to an end and create compliant serfs.
You are aware that the video is AI generated?
Re: First and second largest economies in charts and figures
I don’t know this rag at all (Asia Times), but:
What alternate universe are they in? Maybe they think being a de-industrialized service/financial world is great, but “world class heathcare”? Education? And imputed rent? Interesting values they are espousing.
Good grief.
They are in tongue-in-cheek alternate universe.
Actually the article is a tongue-in-cheek takedown of the notion that China’s economy is smaller than the USA’s. The author is very pro-China; you can check out his archive on the Asia Times website (a good news site, IMHO, I visit it daily along with NC and a handful of others).
Is it just me, or is there a sudden flood of “Iran Begins Colour Revolution” stories in the Usual Suspects channels today?
Perhaps this is laying the groundwork for Bibi and Friends to begin valiant efforts to “help” the people of Iran with “their problems.”
Berra was right. It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
I ponder if Mister Oreshnik will be making an appearance post the attempted attack on Putin in his comfy digs for a meeting with mates ….
Ah, I just got to this comment. I wondered the same thing in a comment above. My suggested target was Buckingham Palace while the Royals are in residence. Sort of a callback to the old Soviet Days, or, I mused, the opening gambit in a Fifth International campaign.
Stay as safe as you can be.
Rumor Control has it as a UKN Government building, probably with a heads up, and only one would suffice nicely enough ….
NYE here in Brisbane …. might go walk down to the local and have a few around 11 pm …
Lucky so and so. We have freezing weather here for the New Year, and there you are cruising down to the local in shorts and flip flops.
Have a very good 2026!
If anyone is interested in the in-depth gory details and lengthy history of fraud in Minnesota see Armin Rosen “The Shame of Our Cities,” County Highway Vol 3 Issue 3 Nov.- Dec. 2025.
Old School journalism at its best. Only available in print form.
Glad to hear they are providing some good information. I really enjoyed it when I had paper subscriptions to the AVA and Counterpunch back in the eighties. A subscription to County Highway is way too expensive without seeing a copy before pulling the trigger.
That is an interesting title, probably deliberate copy of the Shame of the Cities newspaper series from the 1904 era by Lincoln Steffens.
re: Francesco Rosi cinema
Francesco Rosi Was a Master of Left-Wing Political Cinema
By Gabriele Pedullà
Italy’s Francesco Rosi produced an unforgettable series of political movies. They feature mob bosses and oil tycoons, corrupt politicians and conspiring spooks, showing how Italian elites used every dirty trick available to exclude the Left from power.
https://jacobin.com/2025/12/francesco-rosi-italy-political-cinema
easy listening
Hymn To Red October (Main Title)
Basil Poledouris
5 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IyngX5mojc&list=RD5IyngX5mojc&start_radio=1
I know it´s a BS-Western novel and a Hollywood movie but still, Fuck the EU.
Perez Prado And His Orchestra — Mambo No. 5
2:40 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3SwMSlbuCQ&list=RDt3SwMSlbuCQ&start_radio=1
Interview mit Jacques Baud on Dialogue Works:
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-dnar4-29c7d81d
China and the Arctic – an entire many paragraphed article of innuendo supporting the argument (not stated in the article, but clear as day, that “we need more than a trillion dollars for the military, or CHINA!” the US is about to lose its full spectrum dominance (as if).