Trump Appoints Self To Divine Muses The Onion
Scientists replayed evolution and found a surprise ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
As we experience a huge surge of flu cases, a reminder that the widespread usage of masks at the start of the COVID pandemic wiped out a strain of the flu.
If you haven’t been masking up lately, now would be a great time to restart.https://t.co/MHHY1idsHW
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) December 30, 2025
US measles cases surpass 2,000, highest in 30 years: CDC ABC
Climate/Environment
2025 was one of the Three Hottest Years on Record, Scientists Say Deccan Chronicle
EXTRAORDINARY HISTORIC
Record pulverized allover Africa
40.6 Garoua
CAMEROON HOTTEST DECEMBER DAY IN HISTORY40C in Ghana,Chad,Niger,Nigeria
All days of the month records smashed allover the region.
It's BY FAR the most extreme event ever seen in the tropics and will get worse pic.twitter.com/VpwlFFESfG— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) December 29, 2025
The December US heatwave is ending. It was absurd. Last 7 days: 4700 heat records broken (mins & maxs) vs only 55 cold records.
7 day anomalies as much as +25° F. Dozens of monthly records smashed.
The heat dome was forced by a very blocky global pattern, but the intensity is… pic.twitter.com/pp94OzRC1S— Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) December 29, 2025
Historic dry rainy season triggers alarm for deepening food insecurity in the Horn of Africa FEWS Net
Extreme weather events are ‘new normal’ for UK wildlife The Times
Great white sharks face extinction in Mediterranean, say researchers BBC
Sunflower oil pollution could persist at the bottom of the Black Sea for more than 6 years Greenpeace
Will India’s wheat imports lead to global food crisis? Down to Earth
Bach Ma National Park in Vietnam Closes to Tourists Following Historic Floods and Landslides Travel and Tour World
Mapped: 16 times extreme weather drove higher food prices since 2022 Carbon Brief
Water
India’s domination of global rice trade stokes looming water crisis Reuters
A childhood carried in water pitchers: Climate change and lost girlhoods in coastal Bangladesh The Business Standard
Tehran at risk: The looming water catastrophe Daily Sabah
China?
China Unveils Initial $9 Billion in 2026 Consumer Subsidies Bloomberg
China expands housing voucher program amid rising inventories Nikkei
China’s cash-strapped local governments drive record sales of asset-backed securities Financial Times< Xi renews call to boost grain output after trade war sharpens China’s food security push South China Morning Post
China fires rockets into waters off Taiwan in second day of military drills Sky
Japan
Dangerous new equilibrium awaits Japan-China ties in 2026 Japan Times
Benchmark Japan bond yields extend steepest annual surge since 1994 Channel News Asia
Japanese births set to fall below lowest official forecasts in 2025 Financial Times
Koreas
North Korea fires missiles into the sea in latest nuclear weapons warning Independent
India
Foreigners Dump Record Indian Bonds as Weak Rupee Erodes Returns Bloomberg
Southeast Asia
Why Myanmar’s junta election cannot hide a collapsing economy South China Morning Post
Thailand delays return of Cambodian soldiers Bangkok Post
Africa
Niger’s military rulers order ‘general mobilisation’ against armed groups Aljazeera
Ghana reinforces northern border as Sahel violence encroaches DefenceWeb
Sudan’s El-Fasher: 1 Million Former Residents Face Famine and Mass Killings Novinite
South of the Border
Exclusive: CIA carried out drone strike on port facility on Venezuelan coast CNN
Crew Paints Russian Flag on Tanker Pursued by the U.S. Coast Guard New York Times (resilc)
Venezuela’s medicine prices soar to unaffordable level amid US blockades PressTV
U.S. Pressures Mexico Over Fuel Supply to Crisis-Hit Cuba OilPrice
European Disunion
Germany’s job market slows as employment prospects hit record low Xinhua
German business groups expect job cuts in 2026 as economic crisis drags on Reuters
Polish farmers stage nationwide protests over EU–Mercosur trade agreement EuroNews
Farmers’ Road Blockades Split Greece Ahead of New Year Tovima
Bulgaria adopts euro as fear and uncertainty loom Agence France-Presse
Old Blighty
Majority of Brits think economy is getting worse City AM
Maggots, rats and growing despair – a year of the Birmingham bin strike Guardian
Israel v. The Resistance
Israel to ban dozens of aid agencies from Gaza as 10 nations warn about suffering Guardian (Kevin W)
Anti-Israel group demands lawmakers visiting Israel resign Vermont Daily Chronicle (resilc). More of this, please.
Tehran shopkeepers protest currency plunge as rial hits all-time low Iran International
Saudis v. UAE
Saudi Arabia bombs UAE shipment in Yemen and calls out Emirati role Middle East Eye (resilc)
A Saudi-led coalition air strike on Yemen’s Mukalla Port has marked the end of the UAE’s decade-long military presence in the country.
TRT World obtained exclusive Planet Labs satellite imagery showing the aftermath of the Saudi air force strike on the UAE-backed Southern… pic.twitter.com/yW3Nn2izIO
— TRT World (@trtworld) December 31, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia deploys hypersonic Oreshnik missiles in Belarus amid Europe tensions Aljazeera
BREAKING: Drone attack on Putin residence directed at a Russian nuclear command and control center Steven Starr
Stanislav Krapivnik: Massive Escalation – Attack on Putin’s Residence Glenn Diesen, YouTube. Useful commentary on sentiment in Russia.
Larry Johnson: Russia Will Retaliate After Attack on Putin’s Residence Glenn Diesen, YouTube
Poland announces €2 billion anti-drone wall along eastern border Turkiye Today
Imperial Collapse Watch
CIA loses nuclear-powered gadget in the Himalayas, shrugs BoingBoing
Trump 2.0
Five restraint successes — and five absolute fails — in 2025 Responsible Statecraft (resilc)
Kennedy Center renaming prompts a new round of cancellations Associated Press (Kevin W)
How RFK Jr. upended the public health system Washington Post
Mr. Market is Edgy
Markets are witnessing history:
The US stock market cap-to-GDP ratio is up to a record 218%.
This comes as the stock market's value jumped to an all-time high of $68 trillion, far exceeding the ~$31 trillion size of the US economy.
This ratio has surged +56 percentage points… pic.twitter.com/voiQ98u314
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) December 30, 2025
FTSE 100 poised to end 2025 at record levels The Times
Banks tap Fed liquidity tool amid year-end pressures Reuters. Note liquidity is thin at year end and the Fed has been extremely inept in managing it in the era of managing interest rates via paying interest on reserves than in the old days of intervening via its NY Fed money markets desk. So is this warranted or a Powell put lite? I thought the Fed over-reacted in December 2007 with its interest rate cuts and launch of new facilities. Dropping interest rates below 2% set up the ZIRP-super low rates era, which stoked leveraged speculation and further increased already serious wealth inequality.
Federal Reserve minutes highlight deep fissures at US central bank Financial Times
AI
China to crack down on AI firms to protect kids BBC (Kevin W)
Class Warfare
Middle class households overwhelmed as US cost of living crisis spirals Telegraph
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
Returning the marmoset babies to mother after a medical check
pic.twitter.com/z9m9WpdnxQ— Science girl (@sciencegirl) December 20, 2025
A second bonus:
We all need a hug sometimes.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/zGyGOqnXk2
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) December 31, 2025
And a third. Happy New Year!
New Zealand welcomes 2026 with a fireworks display from the Auckland Sky Tower. pic.twitter.com/14NaAjxEzH
— Chris Lynch (@chrislynchmedia) December 31, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Thailand delays return of Cambodian soldiers”
Update: Those 18 POWs have now been returned to Cambodia as part of the peace process-
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/31/thailand-releases-18-cambodian-soldiers-as-ceasefire-
Hopefully things will cool down at that border region.
Thanks. I checked Bangkok Post 30 minutes before Links went live. Disappointing that they are not better about updating on a big story for them but now I know.
They must be very slack and maybe it was because they wanted to get away early to go partying. I watched the handover on the TV news about about three and a half hours before today’s Links came online.
Re. Minnesota welfare fraud allegations and PATRIOT Act
This has been memory-holed at the NY Times (not Fox News), but there are allegations of funding fraud among MN NGOs that receive govt funding. (innocent until proven guilty, etc)
My point related to NC…it appears that the alleged perpetrators were using rather crude, clown car-ish, and lazy (shell company) tactics to move their cash, which shoyld have triggered banking surveillance flags (and why you will get the Spanish Inquistion from your normally friendly local bank teller if you asked to withdraw $20,000 in cash, in person at 10am today).
Which begs the question….why are all these SAR (banking transaction surveillance), PATRIOT Act measures still in place when they can’t even detect the “Keystone Cop” scammers? (of course the right-wing won’t ask this question cuz they’re giddy over catching malfeasance in a blue state)
i guess we all know the answer…it’s a feature, not a bug
When it comes to corruption and republicans every accusation is a confession.
So i will assume this is a nothing burger until proven otherwise.
Rampant corruption and fraud shouldn’t be a partisan issue despite the corporate media efforts to frame it that way (outrage against the other guy gets clicks) and I don’t believe the MN government is denying fraud took place.
I spent most of the late summer of 2021 on this site discussing the fact that the Biden admin had seriously caused themselves some electoral issues from their overwhelmingly stupid vaccine mandate. Not to mention their complete and total disregard for medical history and ethics in so many other areas of the COVID debacle. I was hearing this profound disappointment from my patients all day and every day in my wildly blue area. This was mainly from younger patients. It was zero surprise to me, although it seemed to be a massive surprise to our media, that the blue areas of this country so significantly swung to Trump.
Well, guess what the last 10 days have brought…….in my blue area……except I would say now it is ten times worse. The people are P.I.S.S.E.D. at this entire fraud thing. I am hearing this right and left in my office and in my private life. This is in my opinion pretty serious. Too early for me to tell, but this may be just as bad as the COVID situation for the Dems if not much worse. And as usual, the behavior of the Dems and their media lackeys are making the problems so much worse. Believe it or not, there are actually Dems out there, and lots of them, who care deeply about medical care for seniors, for autism programs, for child care for the working class, for pre-school education among many other programs. To have been told all these years that these issues were being funded made them feel like at least something was being done. To now be told – NOPE – what an illusion – we were actually knowingly funding all kinds of grift and fraud has made LOTS, and I mean LOTS, of people very angry. The news that Tim Walz knew about this in 2018 – and has done absolutely nothing about it has really angered people. I am a former Dem. I am demanding answers and accountability.
I am now told today by two different people who would very much know, both Dems, that only the surface has been scratched. This is going to get really ugly. It is not just Minnesota and it is not just Somalis.
I mentioned yesterday the fraud I see on an almost daily basis. There are SO MANY examples and ways the fraud is happening. There are so many other ways it happens it is hard to know where to begin – and what I know about is just medical practice. Some of the biggest fraud is totally “legal” and happening right before our eyes. I am not sure how else to put this —- the Dems brought us Obamacare. Obamacare crammed EMRs down all of our throats. Let me make this very clear – the EMRs are nothing but a way for big corporate medicine to upbill charges – to squeeze out of the system billions upon billions of dollars. My entire profession has turned into a wealth extraction unit – and that was upgraded on steroids by Obamacare. Thank you Dems. At some point, the country and the entire system are going to be bankrupted. There is no difference in the dishonest fraud done by these home health/day care/autism center people and that done by EMRs…..both based on lies and fraud. The difference is the Somalis are likely going to jail and being deported. The EMR, hospital and corporate medical CEOs are all living it up in multi million dollar mansions.
All of our politicians are in on the grift. Yesterday, listening to Walz blame Trump for what is happening in Minnesota was a real eye-opening LOL. Does anyone with two firing neurons think that Trump had anything to do with what was happening in Minnesota? It is just risible. But what is for certain, so many of the fraud issues I deal with every day are not coming from Minnesota – they are happening in places like Texas and Florida.
Again, the entire system is messed up beyond repair. All of our politicians are involved. And I have no idea what is going to be needed to fix this. After listening to normal, sane people the last week talk about this, I am becoming ever more concerned that people are going to begin en masse to do things like not pay their taxes. They are sick and tired of being patsies and being good citizens while all this is going on unabated. They are supremely upset that so many of them are having their premiums rocket to the moon – but hey, the government has no problem knowingly funding fraud by the billions. This is not a joke. And I think accountability and perp walks are desperately needed.
Digitalizing everything enables fraud at scale.
Have to walk into a bank and look a banker in the eye before getting a loan? You can still pull a scam off, but you’ll need to leave town after your ill-gotten gains, and the bank has cameras, too.
During the pandemic, you could just pull out your phone, open up an app and apply online for a PPP loan. The end result was lots and lots of fraud, with money meant to help small businesses grifted and spent on toys and trips to Vegas.
You make a good point that the rest of us feel like chumps and patsies. Car insurance has gone up something like 200% since the pandemic. I wonder why?
At least the government has gone after a few thousand of the fraudsters:
https://theworlddata.com/ppp-fraud-statistics-in-us/
Thanks for the link. 8% of the total amount stolen seems incredible, and given that the statute of limitations runs for 10 more years, it is probably safe to assume that number will rise as law enforcement finds and prosecutes more cases.
As usual, nobody in Congress is held accountable for designing a program so sloppily that 1 in 10 dollars got stolen.
I am reading Edgar Snow’s Red Star Rising over China. From the background description of the situation in China, it is cristal clear why the Red Armies found full support in the peasantry and in general. I think that the US is in deep need of several such Red Armies…
Nah, the situation in China in the 1920s and 1930s was far more fraught than most Americans can imagine. I’ve seen the way poor country people (“peasants”) in Thailand lived forty years ago. Not too many actually starved to death, but the poverty was so widespread. Things didn’t get better until Thaksin. Despite “Communist” insurgencies in the Northeast and the South most of the country was at peace and many people were even prospering (relatively speaking). Things have to get a lot worse in the U.S. before any number of people take up arms. Last I saw median income for a family of four was around $120,000. That means half the population are making more than that. They may be struggling, but it’s largely because they want luxuries, not because they’re cold or hungry.
Karl Denninger has gone long about the fraud and abuse in the medical system and you may want to check his site. Market-Ticker.org. Something you may find useful.
Thank you.
I’m surprised that many even know about it. Most of the people I know look at me like an alien when I bring it up. Others just say it’s fake news. I can’t find it now, but yesterday I saw a headline from NPR that they didn’t cover this because it isn’t a story. Imagine that!
And of course my PMC vote blue no matter who friends won’t believe a word of it, and will tell me how great Obamacare is.
There is never only one cockroach.
Nothing will happen. Nothing ever does.
The Somali daycare corruption is not even a rounding error for the elites. It has been whipped into a froth by rightwing media. Yes, it is likely criminal.
NYS has allowed unimaginable levels of corruption with Medicaid and social services. A Brooklyn-based nursing home operator bought a county owned home and proceeded to extract $39M in mangement fees, while residents sat for days in soiled diapers and beds. The morgue refrigerator went out and bodies rotted. They were regularly inspected. Our AG Letitia James didn’t prosecute, but negotiated a $2M penalty. Virtually all Medicaid nursing homes are the same deal, Brooklyn “investors” and substandard care.
Where’s the outrage? There ain’t none, because FOX and NewsMax aren’t whipping the froth. If they did, it might highlight the religious affiliation of the “investors”. Further, the “investors” have plenty of lawyers. Perp walks of black Somalis get good ratings, those of Hasidim would be denounced as antisemitic.
Where’s the outrage of forever wars and a trillion for the Department of War? How about the Trump family corruption? Pelosi got away with it, why not Trump spawn at 100x?
Trump has plenty to do with the Minnesota corruption. Like all right-wing Republicans, he’s made a career of denouncing government functions. Like Clinton, too. Outsourcing daycare, elder and disabled care, and everything else creates a fetid swamp for thievery. That’s neoliberalism and capitalism.
“Sunflower oil pollution could persist at the bottom of the Black Sea for more than 6 years: removal and remediation are needed”
Certainly Greenpeace is upset about the damage that sunflower oil pollution can cause for which they directly blame the Russians. Didn’t think of it until now but when those two oil tankers carrying Russian oil in the Black Sea were attacked that had the potential to spread an oil slick both near and far, I never heard Greenpeace coming out with a statement decrying how dangerous this could be in terms of the wildlife that could be harmed by such an oil slick.
It was hardly objective reporting from Greenpeace Ukraine. Another article on the webste blamed Russia for an oil slick in the Black Sea that came from a Turkish flagged ship that was heading for the ‘temporarily occupied Crimea’. Numerous references to the aggressor (Russia) etc., etc. Dialling down the rhetoric in order.
The big tell for me was in one of the greatest ecological disasters of our time when the NS2 pipelines were blown up releasing an ungodly amount of methane into the atmosphere. And yet all the usual suspects like Thunberg and Greenpeace said zip and all you could hear was crickets.
Big methane leaks tend to get surprisingly little play. Nobody remembers that Southern California Edison was blasting roughly the carbon equivalent of the entire country of Morocco into the atmosphere for six months, when their natural gas storage reservoir just north of Los Angeles lost containment in 2015. The carbon footprint of that event was bigger than the Deepwater Horizon oil platform explosion. When it comes to direct climate impact, blowing up Nordstream was trivial by comparison.
It will all be fine & dandy once we get rid of cow flatulence.
Greenpeace’s job is to point out and hype up other countries’ sins like the drying of the Aral Sea and Chernobyl.
Your takeaway is meant to be, “sure, our govt is bad, but theirs is worse, so I should shut up and stop complaining because this is definitely the best of all possible worlds right now.”
Their job is to dissipate the energy and enthusiasm of people that want to make this world a better place. A texbook controlled opposition.
Absolutely, and unfortunately it is extremely effective and swallowed whole without either a seconds hesitation or thought by large numbers of normally thoughtful people.
https://www.greenpeace.org/ukraine/en/news/4199/russia-is-responsible-for-the-oil-spill-in-the-black-sea/
Russia is responsible for the oil spill in the Black Sea
🤡
re: easy listening
Connie Francis – Siboney 1960
3 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWWeA-B9FHM&list=RDqWWeA-B9FHM&start_radio=1
Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)
5 min. (B. Goodman version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWV8aRCdLCA&list=RDmWV8aRCdLCA&start_radio=1
Parov Stelar – Booty Swing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oohTt74uEEQ
I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I’d love you to love me
I’m beggin’ you to beg me
I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I’d love you to love me
I’d shine up the old golf shoes, I’d put on a brand-new shirt
I’d get in 9 holes during work if you say that you love me
Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you liberals cryin’?
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you liberals cryin’?
Feelin’ all alone without a friend, you know there’s no denying
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you liberals cryin’?
I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I’d love you to love me
I’m beggin’ you to beg me
I’d shine up the old golf shoes, I’d put on a brand-new shirt
I’d get in 9 holes during work if you say that you love me
Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you liberals cryin’?
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you liberals cryin’?
Feelin’ all alone without a friend, you know I have no empathy
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you liberals cryin’?
Feelin’ all alone without a friend, you know but I can pretend
Oh, didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you liberals cryin’?
Ooh!
I want you to want me
I need you to need me
I’d love you to love me
I’m beggin’ you to beg me
I want you…
I Want You to Want Me, by Cheap Trick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qgpewMCVjs&list=RD-qgpewMCVjs
A great song, thanks for the adaptation to modern times.
Playing Devil’s advocate for Donald, at least he’s working a half day. Unlike “Milk Carton” Mikey Johnson,
Happy New Year’s Eve!
This live version has great rock and roll fantasy vibe.
Happy New Year’s Eve.
One of the few acts from that era still touring with most of the original members. I think the drummer who looked like the manager at a Staples left some time ago, and they got a second drummer. Other than that they are the original lineup.
Perhaps still worth catching a show, but I’m afraid to look at the prices.
Sorry, but I can’t take them seriously after they froze out Bun E. Carlos.
Happy New Years down under!
In Japan, Cheap Trick was known as the American Beatles, and I get it, being a fanboi in good standing once upon a tune~
Mandocello
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF1S-p7nF8s&list=RDvF1S-p7nF8s
I had a successful record store in the 80’s. Can’t say I ever sold two of their albums. Same with Michael Jackson. A testament to subverting pop culture and still paying the rent.
China fires rockets into waters off Taiwan and North Korea fires missiles into the sea. I expect Greenpeace to make an article about it being bad for the environment. Speaking of Greenpeace, their linked artcle made me check out other stuff on their site, and it’s a site to behold. They recommend me a related one about (non-sunflower) oil spill from a tanker that says:
Slava Greenpeace!
Mapped: 16 times extreme weather drove higher food prices since 2022 Carbon Brief
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They managed to not mention the main culprit for iffy harvests since 2022, with resulting price rise… similar to what led up to the French Revolution after a series of Icelandic volcanoes erupted in the 1780’s~
Hunga Tonga blowing up real good!
Of course the world is much more connected now, but this is what happened in the aftermath of a volcano far away erupting in a similar fashion to Hunga Tonga
It’s sobering to be reminded that “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy”. And I don’t think he was referring to the Graeberian notion of anarchy.
re: film request for the Sunday section
Perhaps semper can find a source for Wong Kar-Wai´s “2046”.
Terrific piece.
Even if only 5 will watch.
I found it for free with ads on Tubi. Tubi seems like a good deal; fifteen minutes of movie to 1-2 minutes of ads. I’m going to investigate further but it may be worth the time for readers to download the app.
Tubi is by far the best free streaming service that exists.
They have an unbelievable number of movies and shows, all uncut, most foreign language are subtitled (not dubbed) and they add new stuff all the time.
Commercials, as you said, are minimal and the best thing is they aren’t 10x louder than the program itself.
Do they close caption all the English speaking shows?
nah, actvid.rs is top notch, and no adds.
[This comment was by repeated violator of site Policies by sock puppeting. All comments will be overwritten or removed. Get another hobby rather than pollute this site]
Thank you!!!
p.s. Also, some might wanna check out Wong Kar-Wai´s later martial arts piece, “THE GRANDMASTER” (2013).
I would like to see Aferim! again
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4374460/
Here is Sydney’s New Year’s fireworks display for 2025-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC0j47KLIgA (24:50 mins)
Less than half an hour until it is 2026 here but Happy New Years, guys.
Happy New Year Rev. May this one turn out better than the last.
PLEASE.
Thank you RK. And a happy Feast of the Circumcision to those who do that too.
umm, and girls. Equality for that which awaits us…
:-/
My version of ‘guys’ also includes ‘girls’ and isn’t gender restricted. Hell, that term also includes for me trans and whatever. It’s just a form of speech.
Great link, Mate!
Sydney does it up better every year.
(It’s the only firework display I’ll see tonight (5 hrs. away) here in the California chapparal.)
The article has an image of Anti-aircraft cruise missiles on a launcher in Radom, Mazowieckie, Poland on Aug. 23th, 2015. Besides “anti-aircraft cruise missiles” being a thing that does/can not exist, the system on the image is Soviet S-125 Neva/Pechora. Top level journalism. :-)
P.S. S-125 is very old system (in service since 1961, according to Wikipedia), and also known for shooting down F-117, and Tom Cruise.
What if they had a war and nobody but drones showed up, annihilated each other, and left all those made of flesh and blood out of it? Ever the giddy optimist, me.
My wife claims that an even better solution would be done via video games…
As such, why the US keeps insisting when all their war games against China and Russia and even Iran end up with the US being handed its ass back, all ripped apart?
Related to the demand that five Vermont legislators who participated in the “50 States, One Israel” tour resign is that at least thirty states require the inclusion of teaching about the Holocaust in their public schools https://www.ushmm.org/teach/fundamnetals/where-holocaust-education-is-required-in-the-us This Holocaust museum link, includes linked information to the various states laws and includes an offer of free “educational resources”. Vermont did not appear on this list. Michigan’s law was enacted in 2016. Initially it was limited to the Jewish Holocaust but was amended in response to Armenian constituents and organizations to include the Armenian holocaust. I was surprised to learn that there are Armenian as well as Jewish holocaust organizations.
I contacted my state representatives requesting that Michigan’s law be amended to include the ongoing Gaza genocide. I also wrote the local office of U.S. representative Rashida Tlaib. I’ve had no responses.
I suggest that those interested, including Arab-American organizations contact their state legislators and suggest that the Gaza Holocaust be included in their states’ mandatory Holocaust education laws.
Of course in an era of live on TikTok holocaust the public already knows far more about the present version than the Armenian. You can’t shame those who have none (our bought politicians).
I lived in Glendale, Ca. for a spell, and it was chock full of Soviet Armenian ex-pats who were rather strident that something that happened 80 years ago that had nothing to do with the USA, must be remembered ad nauseum.
I was glad when my geographical divorce happened, lemme tellya.
In Glendale…the record for me was within 30 minutes of first meeting.
But it wasn’t boring like talking about the weather.
Have you ever been to Fresno?
I’m a big fan of the airport with the fake Giant Sequoias in the foyer-and easy parking only a few hundred feet from the terminal, but as for the rest of Fresno its best avoided-what if there was a plague?
Pita bread as a symbol.
Eaten throughout the middle east, with local variants.
Next time you have some hummus, or even hummous, think of those who didn’t survive, and those who did.
Teach the Nakba in schools.
Happy New Year, to all.
“U.S. Pressures Mexico Over Fuel Supply to Crisis-Hit Cuba’
Proof if it was ever needed that Trump’s standoff with Venezuela is not just a brawl with that country but with any leftist government in South America with Cuba a special target. If Trump took over Cuba, can you imagine all the grandiose plans that he would have for it? Probably he would have a special committee run Cuba made up of business people with selfas Chairman and the whole island declared a special economic zone with no government oversight.
He would definitely bring the Mob back in to run the Casinos and the “Personal Services Industries.”
A special Epstein zone with no government oversight. An extension to Guantanamo, with blackjack and hookers.
Tehran shopkeepers protest currency plunge as rial hits all-time low Iran International
Foreigners Dump Record Indian Bonds as Weak Rupee Erodes Returns Bloomberg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Both of these countries have always been quite pro bulwark against a perpetual notion machine that only goes down in value once printed.
50 years ago it was about 5 Riyals to the buck, now its what a million and a half to the almighty buck!
In the expat Persian community in LA, a quite proper wedding gift in the 80’s and 90’s would be a Credit Suisse 2.5 gram or 5 gram ingot, to give you an idea of how buggy.
The married couple would end up with 47 of them…
Re: Iran
Quite a few clips of large street protests now appearing in my social media timeline.
The situation sounds bad.
Zionists rubbing their hands together furiously.
Doesn’t help their case when those crowds are shouting pro-Shah slogans which I doubt that the bulk of the population would agree with. How many Iranians want the present Shah to come back and rule Iran when he visits Israel and buddies up to them.
An update on events following the police raid on the Marion County Record newspaper.
From the Kansas Reflector:
Documentary about police raid on Kansas newspaper to premiere at Sundance Film Festival
https://kansasreflector.com/2025/12/26/documentary-about-police-raid-on-kansas-newspaper-to-premiere-at-sundance-film-festival
First 3 paras:
‘A documentary about the police raid of the Marion County Record is set to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in early 2026, more than two years after law enforcement stormed the newspaper office, the publisher’s home and a city councilwoman’s home.
Director and producer Sharon Liese says the film looks beyond the First Amendment implications of the raids and dives deeper into the small town of Marion in a way the public hasn’t seen before. She called it “a canary in a coal mine” type of story.
“The story that we eventually told is not what you would expect,” Liese said. “It’s not all about the First Amendment. It’s about what happens between a newspaper and its community in a small town. It’ll make people think about what journalism really is and what people really want journalism to be.” ‘
Trump hosted Kennedy show bombs in the ratings.
https://deadline.com/2025/12/kennedy-center-honors-ratings-donald-trump-host-1236659035/
I watched the entire thing, to see Kiss get their tribute at the end. I think it was your reply to one of my parodies that led me to it. So thanks for that.
The best moment IMO was when Paul Stanley reached over to comfort Peter Criss who seemed to be tearing up. Cheap Trick performed “Rock and Roll All Nite” to close out the event.
The Sly Stallone tribute from his brother Frank and some others whose names I don’t recall was pretty good, too. And I enjoyed learning a bit more about Gloria Gaynor and George Strait.
Yesterday there was a link mat marked important under the imperial collapse watch heading. It was a story on x by Chris hedges but there was no title information. The only other information is that the link was supplied by Chuck L. That link would not work for me and there was no discussion that I could find in yesterday’s links about the article.
Was it perhaps this one? DECLINE AND FALL: https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/decline-and-fall
Yes. That’s the article.
File under: you can’t make this stuff up.
From Townhall:
Netanyahu: Trump Will Receive Israel’s Top Award
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/josephchalfant/2025/12/29/netanyahu-trump-will-receive-israels-top-award-n2668631
Story includes a picture of
Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Bergen is on the leftNetanyahu and T. / ;)“Israel’s Top Award.” Do you mean the dreaded Golden Pager?
“Keep it with you always Mr. President as a symbol of our feelings for you.”
Probably a Golden Calf of his own to install in the
Temple of MammonStock Exchange back home.A herd of heifers?
A fair number of those national heat records broken are in the Colorado River tributaries, and they are having a feeble winter so far, and its early in the game-but if it continued in the same fashion, it could move the Colorado River imbroglio a bit quicker towards conclusion, or not-knowing what nitwits we’ve become.
Elsewhere in Deadline Trump thinks he’s in the movie Gladiator.
https://deadline.com/2025/12/trump-2026-unleash-hell-1236659012/
At the end of last year’s Repub convention they played the Puccini Turandot aria that ends The Sum of All Fears. Don may not read books but he clearly has a rich movie fed fantasy life.
When I was seven or eight I’d binge watch the Weather Channel. (don’t judge)
It was always fascinating how truly frigid some parts of the country were during the winter. I definitely never saw what we’re seeing in the Midwest today. Wowsers
I similarly enjoy time spent noodling around on Ventusky.
Fellow Weather Channel binge watcher (though I was much older apparently), and I agree….. the changes are pretty stark.
I’m back in my hometown, kicking around on a piece of ground … well, since its Buffalo I can’t kick the ground without possibly breaking a toe. Snowing pretty good here, at the moment. The NE ski resorts seem to benefiting from this weather pattern. Denver hitting 61 today caught my eye.
Happy New Year to you and the rest of the loyal commenters in 2025. I really hope we have a relatively calm 2026. The story of US intelligence agencies possibly using Trump’s phone call with Putin to try a “geo-locate, assassinate” mission on Russia’s President just like Israel did to the Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansar-Allah leaders has me thinking that’s a foolish wish.
We’re gonna need a busload of faith to get by, to quote Lou Reed.
Scientists replayed evolution and found a surprise – ScienceDaily
“cellular automata”
Armenian Golgotha…. a book that describes the genocide that took place before WW1. It was a tough read but I learned a lot.
Indeed. The Armenian genocide happened in the Ottoman Empire during WWI, making Herr Mustache’s comment at the start of WWII all the more interesting in today’s political context, imo.
From Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_reference_to_the_Armenian_genocide
Offlinks but for readers here of both authors
https://www.openculture.com/2025/12/j-r-r-tolkien-admitted-to-disliking-dune-with-some-intensity-1966.html
The more recent Dune movies tackle the material by turning it into spectacle. I preferred Dune 1 to Dune 2.
I think Leto II, the Emperor of Dune suffers even more. Paul and Leto II could see into the future and were driven by survival as well as by the higher imperatives of ensuring the survival of the species, the narrow Golden Path, given the previous bottleneck created by the Butlerian Jihad. Tolkein is a hobbit, happy in his hole in the Shire, the ultimate anarchist. Frank Herbert deals with extremely complex systems.
If one puts the Fellowship on horses and gives them six-shooters, Lord of the Rings is basically a Western – the lifestyle of freedom loving peaceful people is under threat and a bunch of anti-heroes solve the problem. The world of Dune is more akin to the Baltics under the Swordbrothers, where an outsider aristocracy do what they want and the serfs suffer what they must. The dynamics of the two setups are completely different.
That said, the latest movie release of Dune was, to my mind at least, merely inspired by the book and I have not bothered to watch the second part. The further one reads trough the Dune books, the more it becomes apparent that Herbert made his universe much too complicated and got kinda lost there himself. IMHO.
Complicated?! Have you read the history of Europe or rise it at the 10 power, the history of India?
This map of Europe over time, I think, illustrates your point. It starts at 400 BC-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY9P0QSxlnI (11:44 mins)
Happy new year to everyone here!
And do not forget to keep those fingers crossed.
Time for a thank you to some of the people that left us in 2025, starting with Jane Goodall. My hero. Also many fond memories of Tom Lehrer and Jules Feiffer. In music, Brian Wilson, Garth Hudson, Roberta Flack, Sly Stone, Flaco Jiminez, Archie Fisher, Marianne Faithfull, Steve Cropper, Jimmy Cliff, Roy Ayers and Jesse Colin Young. Not to forget Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Richard Chamberlain and (sigh) Brigitte Bardot. David Lynch deserves a mention, also Jim Lovell, Boris Spassky and Robert W. McChesney. Farewell!
It just struck me that there are no political leaders in the above. Maybe we have finally run out of decent ones of those to mourn? On the other hand, some people I’m glad to see have gone to their eternal reward are James Dobson, Jimmy Swaggart, Norman Podhoretz, Dick Cheney…and, I guess, Charlie Kirk, who I never heard of before somebody shot him…but what I’ve read about him since doesn’t paint a very positive picture.
A little ambiguous with regard to Pope Francis and David Souter. Seemed to come across favorably by comparison with some of their peers/predecessors/successors, but maybe that’s too low a bar for people with the power wielded by those two. I can’t say.
Colorado River Basin dwellers, pay attention. This is going to wind up in the Fed’s lap and it won’t be pretty.
https://coloradosun.com/2025/12/19/colorado-river-limbo-state-negotiators-las-vegas/
The cardinal picture reminds me of a fun story. Long ago I visited a home in the upper Midwest. I spotted a cardinal in the neighbor’s tree. I snuck around for quite a while trying to get a good photograph before I figured out it was a ceramic model. LOL.
Somehow Bitcoin is hanging in there @ $87k, not sure why and it can’t be the strictly limited 21 million of them, which seems like an awful lot for a limited edition…
The Franklin Mint was kind of the Bitcoin of its day, except there were real coins issued for places where they never circulated, and pretty limited editions too!
They called them: ‘non-circulating legal tender’
This 1972 Bahamas proof coin set (with special mirror surface) had a mintage closer to 21,000 and sold for around $50 when issued, promptly went up to a few hundred bucks, and then settled down to being worth merely the silver value (almost 3 ounces worth in the set) of around $15-20 in the 1980’s and 90’s, but since silver is on a run, it has made it back up to the glory days of say 1974 and is worth $200 again, congrats!
Most all of that Franklin Mint rubbish was made out of sterling silver, so there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but there ain’t no there, there with Bitcoin, except for the photo of a metallic Bitcoin that accompanies every article online I read.
https://www.blackmountaincoins.com/product/coins/world/north-central-america/bahamas-9-coin-set-1c-through-5-1972-franklin-mint-proof-box-coa/
In a year when anything could happen and did, gleaned this headline from the Pavlovegas fishwrap as a parting shot @ 2025…
Re: Japan
The Trial of Abe’s Assassin Is a Test of Takaichi’s Appetite for Political Reform
https://thediplomat.com/2026/01/the-trial-of-abes-assassin-is-a-test-of-takaichis-appetite-for-political-reform/
Yamagami is Japan’s Luigi Mangione
This is one of those finger-wagging articles that does a reasonable job of describing the situation, drawing attention to the endless corruption in Japanese politics, and then the authors conjure up an imagined “test” of the current group of gravy train riders and their “appetite for reform”, when everybody knows they won’t do anything to stop the train let alone disembark.
Another cringe moment brought to you by Trump. So a coupla days ago a member of the Kennedy family – Tatiana Schlossberg, the daughter of Caroline Kennedy- died at the young age of 35 years old due to leukemia. So Trump used the occasion to jump onto his Truth Social account to criticize the Kennedy family over their objection to him adding his name – illegally – to the Kennedy Center. Trump is never willing to let a grudge go as in ever-
https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/12/trump-tears-into-kennedys-hours-after-family-death-is-announced.html
[This comment was by repeated violator of site Policies by sock puppeting. All comments will be overwritten or removed. Get another hobby rather than pollute this site]
#NewNotSoColdWar
Will this last drone attack finally kick off the “FO” stage of the SMO?!
Thanks for those links! Listening to LJ now …
Happy New Year!
It’s a blessing and a curse to outlive a parent. Death does provide an interesting perspective on life. People die, and I’m sorry for their loss. But I was never really sorry. Because I could never really emphasize.
The horror of death isn’t a lesson I felt I particularly needed. I’ve been abhorred by loss of life in Palestine, Ukraine, from stochastic eugenics that ultimately claimed my father’s life. I haven’t felt that I needed an object lesson in death. But you get one anyway. Life guarantees death. It’s inescapable. It strikes down those your love dearest. It strikes you down. In this, you ultimately have no say.
I mostly been dealing with the estate. In sudden death, there is much bureaucracy to contend with. Capitalism taunts you even beyond the grave. It oppresses those that survive you. Just dying is expensive. Burial was $15,000 dollars. The plot itself was a gift from a extended family member that had made other arrangements.
When it is sudden, there’s no planning. The plot is nowhere near any family. Durham has expanded so much, now there’s the constant roar of progress, a huge expressway. If I’m ever rich, I’m having it moved. Somewhere quiet. With a tree or something. Someplace nice, like in the movies. To cover the faint wisp of the highway here, my father would play classic jazz on the radio in the office all the time.
I’m going to sleep on the floor here in the office tonight. It’s our first time back here, after three weeks in Cary. The floor is surprisingly comfortable. It’s quite warm under the tattered remains of his sweater. When they got to him, I assume EMS had to shear it off of him. But he was already dead.
Modern medical technology is pretty terrifying and wondrous. They can keep a body alive for days, long after the brain is dead. By the time a first responder got to him, his brain was likely already gone. I wonder what that’s like. I think about it. Does a cardiac event take moments? You must know that you’re in serious trouble, like when I was swept away in a riptide as a child. I knew I was likely going to die, if the pull of the ocean didn’t abate.
I lived long enough to see my father die.
What’s most amusing is this is a pedestrian occurrence; live long enough, everyone you care about dies. It’s not unique at all. It is what makes us all human. It ought to connect us all in a way that causes neoliberal rape to cease. But it doesn’t work that way. Our common bond of mortality has not led to a better world. Instead killing is a pillar of continuity throughout the ages. Pick any period, and you’ve got mass killing and dead.
Today, we can add the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic to the list of ways to die. This Pandemic is so new, we don’t entirely know what the longterm effects are going to be.
Maybe most people are making the right choice and pretending it is over? I don’t know. The population level data is pretty clear.
And yet in terms of death, it is a tail risk. A fat tail, but a tail nonetheless.
I had no idea my father hadn’t worn a mask when he got COVID at Lowe’s. He’d generally always masked, or so I’ve been told. I can’t really blame him, though. No one my parents know has died from COVID. Every day, no one masks. Every day, people aren’t dying in particularly large numbers.
If you’ve got to play the game, risking COVID is probably one of the best odds you can play. In any given situation, your likelihood of getting COVID is pretty small. My dad played Russian Roulette with extraordinary odds of winning, and lost. But it wasn’t a bad bet. Most people that get infected don’t die, either.
I don’t play, because of the tail risk. The cost of avoiding infection isn’t that high, brunch aside. The price is just getting to play another day.
So I’m not sure I can really blame him. Everyone weaves their own narrative of what happened, to be able to live with the outcome. In mine, my dad forgot his mask, and his back pain was enough, with his five years of chronic lower back pain, that he didn’t go back for his mask. He gambled and lost. He died. Most people win that gamble. He didn’t.
I think life sucks, in general, Climate, Pandemic, Neoliberalism, and I never really cared to grow up. I wonder if my unwilling to take care of my parents, ultimately killed him. At a certain age, you realize your parents don’t know shit either, and the world blows. Eventually, you have enough competence in life to critique your parents choices, and offer viable advice. I never inserted myself in medical matters, I didn’t want to know.
Maybe I should have known and accepted that responsibility. Maybe that might have made some difference.
What’s so engrossing about playing what-ifs, it is possible to dream up so many relevant scenarios. There is no limit to creativity in this. And many of the scenarios are not outlandish. We all knew about COVID. It didn’t even occur to me that I should suggest that he test with a RAT test when he wasn’t feeling well on a Friday, not even that Sunday, on that night did he finally test. Would a few days have made the difference? What if I’d gotten Novavax in 2024 and insisted that he did? Would that have made any difference? What if the emergency care clinic had been willing to prescribe Paxlovid? What if I’d found N95s that were easier to breathe in, with an exhaust valve? The variations are all endless.
At every conclusion, still dead. Dead this year. Dead every year. Forever.
And eugenics is the public policy of the United States. And people have no idea.
What’s going to happen when kids have 6-12+ infections by the time they graduate high school? The recent RAND study that interviews kids themselves pegs absenteeism in their own words at ~ 30% of respondents for sickness. Even if COVID is otherwise harmless, that’s a lot of learning loss, no? And we know kids have an increased rate of long-COVID after a second infection.
I have no idea what might become of me. Dead, of course. But what about in the meantime?
I wish all of you a happy new year, and I beg of you to tell people that you love how you feel; well there’s still time.
Good speed to us all.
My father planned ‘the best he could’, and we’re still tying up loose threads four years later. It’s not on you. I have been to Cary NC before, not many can say that. As for Why, Tolkien’s elves said of immortality,
the years lengthen ever more sorrowful.
I personally know only two men older than me, and I know more dead people than alive. Janet and I have very deliberately nurtured some youngers, both for love and perspective, and our kids quit listening to us long ago. My father told me toward the end, ‘my doctor appointments are my social life.’ Not what he expected. So he decided he wasn’t going to live a certain way. Your priors change as you age.
* Give me the calmness to accept what can’t be changed, the courage to change what should be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference. *
All love, Jason Boxman.
Thank you
Sudden or prolonged, the death of a parent is a shock. My mother was sick for over twenty years. I spent many of them as her caregiver. She died years ago, at Christmas season. I often think it would have been better for both of us if she had gone quickly but she went when it was her time.
I tend to ruminate, asking myself if I did the right things for my mother. Almost every day during those long, dark years when she was sick, there were life or death decisions for her that I had to make. What were the “right things”? I still don’t know.
It was my mother’s practice that we always said “I love you” to each other before we parted. Before I went to elementary school every morning as a child. Before I left her hospital room for even an hour as an adult. She knew I loved her. There is some solace to be found in that.
I have experienced been many losses, many deaths since my mother passed away. Each one has left a mark, some much deeper than others. Now my own health is precarious. It’s surprising that I have made it to 2026. I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but this year, I’m resolving to cherish the people, beloved cat and time I still have.
I am very sorry for your loss, Jason. Don’t blame yourself for what cannot be changed. Ultimately, we do the best we can for our loved ones. That is all we can do.
#Sympathies & Condolences
Dealing with some of the same … although not (directly) COVID related.
I always try to remind of another layer of Swiss Cheese: HOCl nebulization. For people who “won’t”/”don’t like to”/”forget to” mask, I always suggest adding a pre and post regime of nebulizing with HOCl (ionized water) as a method to clean the nasopharyngeal passages after any potential exposure. Other folks here swear by things like the neti pot as well (via Mayo Clinic).
Nebulizer & HOCl (via amazon.com, apologies … feel free to source elsewhere).
Best wishes for the new year to you. Hope it brings healing and good health in these sadly COVID-ignorant times.