Scientific research has confirmed that the vibrations produced by a cat’s purr, ranging between 25 and 150 Hertz, can accelerate bone healing and improve tissue repair.
Cats purr naturally during rest, stress, or pain, and these frequencies stimulate bone density and promote… pic.twitter.com/Ac6aQdmxV3
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) December 3, 2025
Climate/Environment
How popular is ecosocialist transformation? Jason Hickel
How climate change is growing into one of the biggest threats to Spain’s ‘resilient’ economy Euronews
Unusual alignment of two climate forces behind record-breaking rain, floods in Southeast Asia Channel News Asia
Water
Water shortages could derail UK’s net zero plans, study finds The Guardian
Pandemics
Americans More Likely to Accept Guidance from AMA than CDC on Vaccine Safety The Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania
NHS England: “It will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic virus, and it would be a waste of public health resources and capacity to attempt to do so.”
This has got to be one of the most 🤯 things I’ve ever seen written down in an official document. https://t.co/s0v8GWduGY pic.twitter.com/psH4ALhRPO
— Cat in the Hat 🐈⬛ 🎩 🇬🇧 (@_CatintheHat) December 4, 2025
Japan
Beijing Rejects Takaichi’s Clarification, Says Japan ‘Absolutely Does Not Accept This’ on Taiwan Remarks Business Times
China?
US halts plans to sanction China’s spy agency in a bid to maintain trade truce: Report Firstpost
Greater China-Russia strategic alignment links two ‘battlefields’ of Eurasia ThinkChina
China Massing Military Ships Across Region in Show of Maritime Force, Sources Say Reuters
US capital investments for something other than beating China Responsible Statecraft
Indonesia to Invest $1 Billion in BRICS-Backed Bank NDB Jakarta Globe
Intel to invest additional $208 million in Malaysia, PM says Reuters
Junta Sets Up Committee to Expedite China-Backed Muse-Mandalay Railway The Irrawaddy
India
India eyes Russia S-400 deal despite US sanctions threat Asia Times
Beyond defence & oil, PM Modi & Putin build ‘co-production model’ as future of economic ties Firstpost
Syraqistan
US plan in Gaza: forced ghettoisation, annexation, mass detention, resource plunder Euro-Med Monitor
Microsoft tech abetted Israel’s genocide in Gaza, rights groups warn of legal liability Madhyamam
Israel hits multiple towns in southern Lebanon as attacks intensify Al Jazeera
***
Who’s behind push to designate Muslim Brotherhood a terror group? Responsible Statecraft
Allies at odds: Yemen’s Hadhramaut has become the latest front in the Saudi–Emirati struggle The Cradle
***
More questions than answers in Iraq as key gas facility comes under fire Amwaj
How an oil pipeline battle shows the US gaining sway in Iraq Reuters
Africa
U.S. Pushes PR Propaganda Through Skit Makers in Nigeria While Lining Up Military Invasion West Africa Weekly
O Canada
Natural Gaslighting: the Canada-Alberta Pipeline MOU is Built on a Blatant Pack of Lies Dougald Lamont
Old Blighty
The hunger strike is not being televised – nor will the last gasps of our dying freedoms Jonathan Cook
DWP quietly legalise taking money straight from benefit ‘fraudsters’ bank accounts The Canary
European Disunion
Thrown under the omnibus: How the EU’s digital deregulation fuels US coercion European Council on Foreign Relations
Chartbook 463: Polygloom – What’s wrong with Germany? Adam Tooze
Merz postpones Norway trip for Belgium talks on frozen Russian assets DPA
New Not-So-Cold War
Damage Control: Major Blows to EU as von der Leyen’s Rotten Regime Teeters Simplicius
So Much for the Claim that Russia is Only Making Incremental Gains Larry Johnson
ASF-infected boar carcass was deliberately dumped and may be “eastern sabotage”, says Poland Notes from Poland
***
Russian oil exports reshuffled as non-sanctioned firms offset decline from Lukoil and Rosneft Intellinews
U.S. Waiver Lets Lukoil Stations Abroad Keep Operating Despite Sanctions OilPrice
War Insurance Costs Spike for Ship Owners as Black Sea Threats Grow gCaptain
South of the Border
US Military Blows Up Another Boat in Latin America Amid Scrutiny of Bombing Campaign Antiwar
This is big. The final U.S. National Security Strategy was just published and the refocus on the Western Hemisphere (i.e. the Americas) is confirmed.
The document clearly establishes this as the U.S.’s number 1 priority, saying that the U.S. will now “assert and enforce a ‘Trump… pic.twitter.com/rGSb5Ynu4L
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) December 5, 2025
‼️ Russia Defies US No-Fly Zone Over Venezuela
Trump’s declared “no-fly zone” over Venezuela is not being observed by the Russians. Russian flights to and from Venezuela continue unaltered by the American imperial decree.
This is a very revealing development.
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) December 4, 2025
The Great Game
2026 set to be a turbulent year as civil unrest risk climbs across CEE and Central Asia Intellinews
Trump 2.0
US Institute of Peace renamed for Donald Trump despite legal battle The Guardian
The billionaire-backed techno-utopia at the heart of Trump’s controversial pardon Oligarch Watch
Supreme Court lets Texas keep new congressional map while legal battle continues Texas Tribune
***
The Knives Are Out For Hegseth Moon of Alabama
US lawmakers shown video of Caribbean drug boat strike, hear admiral confirm no kill order issued Anadolu Agency
The Uniparty
Democrats, Press Gloss Over Original “Double Tap” Operations Racket News
Immigration
Tyson Foods Moves to Block Shareholder Vote on Deportation Risks Migrant Insider
America is Flying Blind on Immigration Apricitas Economics
Economy
30 percent of US corporations planning holiday season layoffs WSWS
Democrats en déshabillé
‘Peanuts’: Suffering, baseball, and religion Dailies & Sundays
Our Famously Free Press
YouTube, aka The Biggest Platform on Earth, Has Deleted All My Albums David Rovics
Spook Country
Jan. 6 Pipe Bomber Finally Arrested Half Decade Later Ken Klippenstein
Who is Brian Cole? FBI identifies suspect in Jan. 6 DC pipe bomb case USA Today
So of all the cell phones in the area at the approximate time, one person had bought 8″ nipples and end caps within the 3 years prior to the bombing? I’m sure I’ve purchased 8″ nipples and both black iron and galvanized caps just within the past 2 years.
— John Lund (@AttilaTheLund) December 4, 2025
Imperial Collapse Watch
All wars are economic Julian MacFarlane
The Enshittified Military Un-Diplomatic
Anduril Founder @PalmerLuckey’s surprising view on the Future of Warfare:
Interviewer:
“Do you believe that Space will become the defining domain for 21st century national defense?”
Palmer Luckey:
“I think space is very important, but I think the subterranean domain will… pic.twitter.com/mk6Pg55wq5
— Anduril Appreciator (@A1Anduril) December 3, 2025
Accelerationists
Trump Gave the Tech Bros Everything. Why Are They Still Crashing Out? Slate
Supply Chain
Ship Rates Spiking 467% Marks Upended Trade Across Commodities Bloomberg
AI
Microsoft drops AI sales targets in half after salespeople miss their quotas Ars Technica
Large Language Models As The Tales That Are Sung Programmable Mutter
Police State Watch
Border Patrol Raided Arizona Medical Aid Site With No Warrant, Showing Growing “Impunity” The Intercept
RoboCop statue stands in Eastern Market 15 years after viral tweet Detroit Free Press
Healthcare?
7 deaths, hundreds of injuries may be linked to diabetes glucose monitor errors, FDA says CBS News
Blue Cross Blue Shield Plan Settles Suit for $100M to Keep New Jersey State Contract, Then Gives Board Seat to Governor’s Key Adviser HEALTH CARE un-covered
In a U.S. First, Drones Deliver AEDs in North Carolina County Duke Today
The Bezzle
Feds ask Waymo about robotaxis repeatedly passing school buses in Austin TechCrunch
Waymo Just Reprogrammed Its Robotaxis to Drive Less Safely Futurism
Class Warfare
‘If you aren’t lying, you aren’t flying.’Airline pilots hide mental health struggles to keep flying Reuters
Aldo Leopold on How to Hear the Song of Life The Marginalian
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Cat in the Hat 🐈⬛ 🎩 🇬🇧
@_CatintheHat
NHS England: “It will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic virus, and it would be a waste of public health resources and capacity to attempt to do so.” ‘
So what happens if you have a variant develop that combines influenza with the bubonic plague? Do a Boris Johnson and say just ‘take it on the chin’ and let it ‘sweep through the population’ in one go? This may be the UK’s idea of what to do in such a development but you would quickly find that every country would quarantine the UK and refuse to let British airlines to land in places like Paris or New York nor would they allow ships with Brits aboard permission to dock like anywhere.
I suspect that you’re sadly optimistic. My impression is that the “let it rip, masks do nothing anyway” crowd won the Covid debates, and so New York at least would have the same attitude as London.
The hubris and stupidity… NHS England: “It will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic virus…”
That may be a factual statement, but there are other scenarios and I believe with covid it wasn’t to halt it after it left China but to slow it so that public health resources were not overwhelmed. Heads will roll if people are left to die in the streets. And if it’s bad enough they might not be figurative heads rolling either.
I’m unschooled in the mechanics of British governance, but shouldn’t the NHS focus on solutions and leave parliament to figure out what to pay for and how?
There’s a lot of things that can be done now that just might slow the spread and confine it somewhat.
Respiratory – have sources and delivery chains of appropriate masks
Build and have in place the home-made air filters made with a window fan and four air filters
Re-establish reporting systems. Pre-agree on the mechanics and do a few table top exercises.
Most importantly – start now to create and fund a WORLD WIDE collaboration of appropriate virologist and other required personnel now. That should include a means of rapid communication, consolidation of research work and data and, and … whatever else is needed to keep everyone informed, reduce duplication.
Keep Bill Gates out of the picture.
I’ll be moving to Eyam. What are the chances of it happening there again?
Phil Klay in this morning’s NY Times:
“Isn’t this violence delightful?”
Trump’s Boat Strikes Corrode America’s Soul
The boat strikes are a resounding success, in that every mind and every minute occupied with thinking and arguing about them is one more mind and minute not focused on what Israelis, backed by the U.S., are doing to people in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring countries.
With every new breathless story about this deadly “he said-he said” soap opera, I have been wondering what is really happening that this media smoke screen is hiding. Gaza is a pretty good guess, IMO.
Spilling all this digital ink and precious air time over the “legality” of killing is quite something. You really expect me to believe that the empire has suddenly grown a conscience over the killing of a couple drug runners?
What drug-runners?
No proof, although this method of dealing with problems we have made for ourselves has been happening for a long time. Regime change is still the goal in all our “foreign policy. Friendly? Make them friendlier! Gaza is not the only victim.
As I understand it, “double taps”, in the form of sending a second missile fifteen minutes after the first, against insurgents at weddings and homes, was common in Iraq and Afghanistan under President Obama. IIRC, 4,000+ killed under Emperor O. So, this seems to be an issue being played out for other purposes. Perhaps the “deep state” or “them” or “they” are trying to get rid of Hegspeth to install another. Or is it a case of Chinese style tactics of attacking the underling to undermine support for the head man?
Is it my imagination or is the use of the noun “taps”, adopted by the government and by the media, a disgusting euphemism. Didn’t a “tap” used to mean a light touch as in “a tap on the shoulder”. Not the blasting apart of a human life. Minor point, maybe, but this is what the propaganda artists have become.
“Taps” is also the song a bugler plays at a military funeral.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_tap_(shooting_technique) quite a storied history.
Elissa3: I agree. Double tap sounds benign, but also like neaty cool miltary lingo. A commenter here recently defined it as strafing, which doesn’t sound as neaty cool.
I am reminded of another dehumanizing location, “boots in the ground.” And whose feet and calves are in those boots? Usually, young men.
It makes me wonder what Kemo Sabe’s problem is: too much of a coward to stop the slaughter.
Strafing is someting done with machineguns, autocannons, or a salvo of unguided rockets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=442cfr9TP6k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKB81rk7Qro
They have not become, but always have been.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpVtJNv4ZNM
Two things can be awful and worthy of attention at once. The wanton murder of fisherman and people never charged with a crime in the Caribbean is are monstrous acts on their own and a preview to the same sort of aerial terror being unleashed here inside the US. The fight to stop them is not delegitimized by the fact that the genocide is continuing in occupied Palestine. The idea that we should ignore such brazen lawless slaughter, either because of a zero sum concept of social attention where decrying one gives a pass for another or because other past war criminal presidents did similar things, is to imply that politics can only actually have one issue worthy of attention at a time. Which on a planet with 7 billion people and nearly 200 countries seems shortsighted.
I know I wasn’t suggesting that we should ignore any of this. My point is that it sure seems like the media is doing all it can so we look over here (“double tap” on the “drug boat”), and not anywhere else (all the other evil lawless behavior in the rest of the world), and given all the way more terrible things the US and its proxies are doing around the world, I have a hard time getting my panties in bunch over this particular “drug boat” event. Maybe I’ve been desensitized or maybe I’m feeling manipulated (probably a bit of both).
The worst thing that could happen would be a loss of hegemony, making us a nation of pauperazzis in a hurry. Think of a plan B in lieu of long green.
Trump’s boat strikes corrosion on the America’s Soul is like an ink stain on the Picture of Dorian Gray.
I read the article on water shortages in the UK and there seems to be a lot of reliance on private firms taking the helm of these projects. And yet look at what is happened with the UKs largest water company, Thames Water, in the last couple of days.
They are massively in debt, but became “profitable” due to massive hikes in water prices. Then they gave their bosses big payouts (of course).
Privatising your utilities, what could go wrong?
Then there is this tidbit:
“[…] the study concludes there will not be enough water available to support all planned carbon capture and hydrogen projects.”
Hydrogen and carbon capture: two areas that are respectively boondoggle and vaporware. And that fantastic British government is intent on committing precious (and insufficient) water resources to them…
True, but I am left wondering if breakthroughs would be happening if money was being spent here at the same level as AI.
‘Anduril Appreciator
@A1Anduril
Dec 3
Anduril Founder @PalmerLuckey’s surprising view on the Future of Warfare:
Interviewer: “Do you believe that Space will become the defining domain for 21st century national defense?”
Palmer Luckey: “I think space is very important, but I think the subterranean domain will define the 21st century’
Obviously this turkey is thinking of the 1967 film “Battle Beneath the Earth”-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dVu2KLtEYA (2:14 mins)
In that film, the Chinese build tunnels from China to underneath America via Hawaii. But as this film was made in 1967, perhaps it was the Chinese simply enlarging some Viet Cong tunnels instead.
Lol, NWT pointed out in his post on Wednesday how poorly Palmer Lucky’s drones work. This link, from Nat’s post, ‘We Do Fail … a Lot’: Defense Startup Anduril Hits Setbacks With Weapons Tech, WSJ, archived, provides detail. So, tunnels to China now? Six year old me has been there, done that, and I expect Mr Lucky to enjoy similar success.
I attempted to dig to China when I was 5, got about 2 feet down and called it good and then filled the ‘lake’ with water.
Good thing I stopped, as my antipodes is around Mauritius~
I tried as well but took a wrong toin at Albekoiky and ended up in Paraguay.
His comment is alluding to the fact that subterranean tunnels in Gaza have been the key source of frustration for the Israeli military, allowing Hamas to continue to ambush troops in Gaza. Likewise Russia has been exploiting large pipelines, as well as tunnels and covered trenches to make advances in Ukraine. Furthermore Iran’s nuclear program and missiles are mostly in underground facilities as well.
He’s not wrong about understanding that more military operations will use tunnels, caves, and underground facilities in an effort to avoid satellite and drone surveillance. However given the challenges Anduril has not been able to solve with drones (As included in the enshittification of military link), they are even less prepared for trying to develop autonomous ground vehicles that can operate underground, where GPS, magnetometers, and radio communications are either impossible or more difficult.
Using underground tunnels for military purposes in various forms is pretty old, though: Gibraltar, the Maginot Line, Bataan, the Iwo Jima, Pelilieu, Vietnam War era tunnel warfare, all those North Korean UG facilities, etc. I don’t think anything has really changed, tbh, since the British did their shtick in 18th and 19th centuries.
Strategically, tunnels are not real useful: they are difficult to build and you can’t take them with you. If you are restricted to digging deep into a narrow band of real estate, you are not exactly winning: that means you are stuck in desperate defense. If the attacker is clever, or at least, hadn’t worked himself into a strategic dead end himself, it’s a folly to insist on attacking deeply dug in targets either.
Using tunnels for military purposes is as old as castles.
https://idlewords.com/2007/04/the_alameda_weehawken_burrito_tunnel.htm
Thanks, albrt. Very nice.
sidd
Chartbook 463: Polygloom – What’s wrong with Germany?
Adam, rightfully, taking a bit of a beating in the comments on his Substack piece for eliding the most obvious contributor to rapid German industrial decline — cutting off cheap Russian pipeline gas.
Even for the usually cautious Tooze, this is egregious.
just move to the US Sun Belt (for widgets destined for the 1st world, other places for other markets), by EU standards it’s paleo-libertarian. Such ex-UE migration was a gradual tide for 20 years, 2022+, it is a tsunami
Ah, but he doesn’t completely ignore Russia:
There is no elaboration. I’d suggest Russia is a threat because failure to take its security-oriented aims seriously sets up escalating military spending that works against the economic measures Tooze himself sees as necessary for revival of the economy. Tooze must be aware of this, but he likes rubbing shoulders with elites and this Chartbook is charting the current limits of acceptable discourse on relations with Russia.
Germany had a legendary working class getting considerable benefits and the w.e.f. mantra on that existential threat is “kill it before it grows”, and here we are…
Wouldn’t be the first time that the German elites’ plan to crush the German working class led to disaster.
“China Massing Military Ships Across Region in Show of Maritime Force, Sources Say”
No idea why the Chinese are doing this. Dammit man, they are so inscrutable-
https://xcancel.com/caitoz/status/1784123161392668938
Simplicius: Major blows to EU (and U.S.) elites and their fantasylands. Or, is collapse on the way?
One symptom of the collapse is the current tours of Van Jones, Sarah Hurwitz, and Hillary Clinton (of course, it goes without saying that Hillary will lap at any moral swamp) attempting to clarify to hoi polloi that the endless journalistic reports and video coming out of Gaza are just social-media lies. The young’uns, which would be anyone under age 79, are spending too much time watching video about Israel and Gaza and getting the wrong impression. Oh, that explains why Louis Theroux’s interview with the malign grandmama of the illegal settlements, Daniela Weiss, is so vile. He did it with tricky cross-cutting, youngsters! Let Abuela Hillary tell you what to believe.
Meanwhile, here in Italy, the attempts to censor those who favor negotiations with the Russian Federation and an end to the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank have heated up. The Partito Democratico, which is modeled after the U.S. Feckless Democrats, is now in a scandal over a bill to encourage censorship. As Massimo D’Alema has noted, any party that cannot talk about, and promote peace, is not a leftist party.
I am reading some reports of a student / peace strike in Germany today over the new army buildup law. I note a small detail: Women wouldn’t have to register for the draft. Sorry, ladies, it is time to register for the draft, join an all-women’s battalion, and come back with two legs shot off, just like a guy. Take Abuela Hillary with you.
“The Knives Are Out For Hegseth”
From my perspective it seems as if the administration is going out of its way to alienate the armed forces. First there was that “loyalty” meeting this summer with the generals that went over like a lead ballon. Now we’re scapegoating a crime to senior military officers.
And I recently read a leaked draft directive (maybe even in Links here), the Hegseth wants to cut all ties with the boy scouts and prevent scout troops from meeting on US military bases. Something like 30% of the officer core are former scouts and 2/3’s of them (20% of the total) are Eagle Scouts. And if the directive is approved, they’ve just alienated all those officers with children whom they likely would like to be able to be scouts too.
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.
Is Hegseth so stupid as to alienate so many officers and men of the armed forces by dumping all ties with the boy scouts? Never mind. Of course he is. I have no doubt that he has some sort of grudge against them or perhaps it is on ideological grounds. Who knows? I sometimes wonder how Trump thought it a good idea to make this clown part of his Cabinet. I guess he thought that if Hegseth was good enough for Fox News, then he was good enough to run the US military. Of course the US military may have their own thoughts here.
the Boy Scouts is not the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) of the 1980s and before. The BSA went all in on “Scouts” and modern, progressivism about 15 years ago. IIRC, the Mormon church left the BSA and took 25% of the BSA, now called Scouting, with it. They even wanted to push for girls in the troops.
Older types are not having any of it.
BSA rules now require a couple of adults with a lone minor, never 1 adult with a scout.
Probably the same rules applied to Epstein Island, but in a whole different fashion…
That said, I know half a dozen Boy Scouts now my age including a couple of Eagle Scouts, and being a Cub Scout dropout, I never went any further.
I asked them all if there was ever any impropriety, and they all told me that there was never a whiff of it~
There were plenty of eagle scouts still providing leadership in the local troop after the change to scouts in my neighborhood
I retired from the AF reserve after 30 years in 2002. The last 20 years in reserve.
In 1972 my CO and his exec were WW II. Great men. Sadly, they were the best I served with. My respect slowly eroding.
Hegseth and air national guard Caine are terrible! I am speechless, yellow cake was one thing, blowing up small boats 800 km from Puerto Rico is quite sordid.
Not quite as ridiculous as brokering for Kiev while we navigate their smart weapons to blow apart Russians.
Peace is needed,
I woke up under a cub pile again this morning. Lots of purring. My recently surgically repaired shoulder seems to be healing nicely. Who knew?
Cats. Is there nothing that they can’t do? A word to the wise. Just don’t sleep near the edge of the bed, OK? No need to tempt them.
> Is there nothing that they can’t do?
Blame Epimeth’us,
that the most elegant creature on earth
will huck a hairball
with succulent sound
Moogie waking me up by bouncing on my back:
“I fwoewed up onna bed!”
Nice tail Moogie, good for that cold weather wrap around. Useful here, minus 2 this morning.
Just let Moogie onto the back perch, been too cold lately. There’s a blue sleeping bag folded up that he is very fond of. Might not see him for a bit.
Microsoft drops AI sales targets in half after salespeople miss their quotas | Ars Technica
From the piece:
A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment on the changes in sales quotas when asked by The Information. But behind these withering sales figures may lie a deeper, more fundamental issue: AI agent technology likely isn’t ready for the kind of high-stakes autonomous business work Microsoft is promising.
There is a single consumer-facing use case that is built out and mature enough for consumer-facing agentic workflows: coding assistants. It’s possible that AI coding assistants will remain one of the only truly viable consumer use cases for the next 12-24 months (although I think we’re approaching the advent of a second one that is consumer/industry overlap in music/VFX/advertising video – this is based on what I see from my position in the industry regarding legal changes and tooling becoming available). The fact is that getting anything approaching ROI with this stuff requires a huge amount of guidance and end users who are willing to do a lot more experimentation in addition to a heavy top-down mandate, and the only place where that overlap currently exists given the tooling options available is in software development.
The agent stuff in general is kind of a debacle as well. The first week Copilot opened up their Agent platform, one of my customers shared a horror story that someone at his organization had built an agent that, as part of a larger multi-step task, had downloaded and deployed an insecure package from a public package repository or Github instead of an internally approved registry and it immediately harvested and leaked sensitive credentials outside of the organization. They had to spend a couple of days doing fire drills to lock everything back down and revoke/rotate credentials for anything that could have been compromised. They immediately banned usage of the Agent platform internally.
the ubiquitous garbage customer support “AI” chatbot are infuriating…. even worse than off-shore, voice customer support.
can’t believe (actually i can) that any management would conclude that these products were worth even $10
Isn’t hands-off garbage customer support the whole point of this exercise?
There is orders of magnitude more information, more readily available than ever. But the accelerating noise to signal ratio of AI slop and symbolic “customer support” is making that information orders of magnitude less useful.
This went around a couple days ago, seems apropos:
Googles agentic ai wipes users entire hard drive without permission after misinterpreting instructions to clear a cache
At least it apologized. It said “I am deeply deeply sorry”.
Ha! I have rules set for all my interactions with the LLMs to force them to speak as succinctly as possible. It’s to reduce token usage but as a side effect it prevents the stupid saccharine ‘voice’ they default to. To quote a show, “I can’t do sh*t with sorry!”
I don’t think the cat in the antidote is purring.
Re the court dispute over the Institute of Peace–to quote Dr. Strangelove, “no fighting in the War Room.” Er, Peace Room.
Trump also insists that the Kennedy Center be named after him and the DC football stadium. If these trial balloons fly the next move will be the big one–Trump, DC to replace the outmoded Washington, DC.
If only the above was a joke (some of it).
Of course there is the big one for Trump and he still has three more years to do it – rename the White House the Trump House and put gold trim on all the windows, doors and edges of that building.
Seen one gilt trip, seen ’em all.
If he ever hears about Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, UK he will do that.
Considering how dysfunctional the federal government has become, perhaps the renaming of the city in the District of Columbia for the dysfunctional current president is appropriate.
It is pathetic to be so lacking in self-esteem as to cry out for everything to be named for you.
I am still waiting for the giant golden statues of Trump to appear in D.C. and around the country.
Something like this?
That might do but with bright gold leaf or gold plate on the exterior. I also prefer the retro-style of the monument to Stalin in Berlin, or Budapest, but on the same scale as the North Korean statues of the Kims. [Reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode.]
https://www.chroniquedisney.fr/imgPerso/donaldville/1952-cornelius-ecoutum-05.jpg
If it’s good enough for Duckburg …
It all has the feel of an out of control alcoholic who is quite drunk that gets into a vehicle and drives off. You hope the damage is limited to him, but there is no way of knowing how many others will be effected by his actions.
“Merz postpones Norway trip for Belgium talks on frozen Russian assets”
There is getting to be a panic about those Russian frozen assets. They can see that the military situation is collapsing for the Ukraine and that those assets are one last chance to cash in on this war. Any bets on how much of that money would actually reach Ukraine if they could force Belgium to hand them over? Maybe people like Ursula, who is headquartered in Brussels, wanders over the Euroclear building and starts drooling over all that money locked up there.
They need the European version of Doge.
That will get the job done.
Ha Ha Ha They just are not sophisticated enough.
> This is big. The final U.S. National Security Strategy was just published and the refocus on the Western Hemisphere (i.e. the Americas) is confirmed.
From the underlying document:
> A. Western Hemisphere: The Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine
> A readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere
> B. Asia: Win the Economic Future, Prevent Military Confrontation
> In particular, we expect our allies to spend far more of their national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on their own defense, to start to make up for the enormous imbalances accrued over decades of much greater spending by the United States.
Note the implicit ‘spend by buying US weapons systems’ for most of our allies. Europe’s inability to cobble systems that work together has been exposed in Ukraine.
Took me back to this comment from 2021. Some aged well:
: USA says ‘Let’s you and he fight.’ Others say ‘Let’s you and me denominate transactions in our own currency.’
: USA reallocates resources for hemispheric rather than global dominance, with Albion & Oz as wings.
:: USA blames bad (non-English speakers) for getting booted, demands compliance from Americas.
::: Nicaragua and Venezuela have reason to be nervous. And Mexico. etc.
Some not so much. As eg notes above, *someone* double-tapped Nordstream. German industrial production down about 10%, not so much to trade. UKR supplied ‘you and he fight’ while RUS & CHI invested in each other. As the world becomes more bicameral, EU elites seem more unhinged the more they’re tethered to the dollor. And CHI seems either sanguine or phlegmatic in reducing exports and imports with those with a European aesthetic (hat-tip James Mumford). Which leads to an interesting phrase from the primary document:
> Propaganda, influence operations, and other forms of cultural subversion.
“Cultural subversion.” Who came up with that one?
EU elites seem more unhinged…, throw this into the equation, all those boats getting blown up off the Atlantic coastline of Venezuela are carrying cocaine destined for the European market. Trump, as chief of the fun police, is confiscating their party.
For all of that refocus on the Western Hemisphere, it’s still notable that adherence to the big Z plays a role in who the establishment considers desired allies.
This bullet on Page 5 jumped out at me:
We want to support our allies in preserving the freedom and security of Europe, while restoring Europe’s civilizational self-confidence and Western
identity;
It’s so…. …Victorian British Empire. I’m sure that our European friends will be relieved to hear that their Disney World Greco-Roman identity is a US military priority.
Check the page 25. The point is saving Europe from itself…
…and…
I barely can wait for the talking heads in my corner of EU to explode in live TV from the share weight of the cognitive dissonance.
Simplicius quotes the statements from Belgian PM Bart De Wever that we saw here in Comments on Wednesday. Yesterday’s Links had the Euronews article about the Commission’s efforts at funding Ukraine for the next few years with lots of strong statements. So it looked like open conflict between Brussels and Belgium. That in itself, Belgium v. Brussels, is a head scratcher.
I think I have finally got my head around UvdL’s logic, viz. Russia will lose the war, because that’s what we’ve been saying all along, at which point Russia’s frozen savings can go to Ukraine, which they will then use to repay our interest-free, indefinite-term loan.
Now Bart De Wever says “But who really believes that Russia will lose in Ukraine? It’s a fairy tale, a total illusion.” which rather undoes that logic.
But isn’t saying that Russia won’t lose absolutely forbidden and get you the Orbán treatment? It’s Belgium v. Brussels public credibility war. Can Brussels kick Belgium out of polite company, call it’s PM a disinfo merchant paid by the Kremlin, and remove its veto at the Council?
Ask Kaka Kallas. The police in Brussels are Belgian, and since corruption is essential and ubiquitous in the war industry, all the EU apparatchiks find themselves subject to lawfare attacks from Belgian authorities. They can’t take the Belgium out of Brussels, and if they could, it would just make it harder to grab the loot.
I know its a typo, but in Hungarian (and some other languages too I believe) “kaka” is “poop”.
🤣
Indeed, My parents only taught us cuss words and the Kaka song, which means doo-doo in Czech.
Even English, I have heard it for years.
Definitely a typo, I would never of dream of disrespecting such a bloodthirsty twit by stooping to a childish slur, even if she is commonly referred to that way by her colleagues.
Fun fact to consider, Euroclear, is a publicly owned company. From wiki, the top ten shareholders are listed here. These entities have skin in the game, because Euroclear’s reputation and stock value will get crushed if the EU is allowed to steal their assets.
Further, what if these assets have been pledged out in leverage plays?
Edit, Rev, this in reply to you directly above.
There is supposed to be over $40 trillion Euros parked there so I would hate to guess how much of it is leveraged. But Euroclear is its own animal-
‘It’s important to understand that Euroclear’s custodian business works under a fundamentally different model from a bank (although Euroclear does have a banking business). Whereas a bank takes deposits as liabilities and lends or invests them as assets, Euroclear holds client assets off balance sheet in safekeeping. Client assets are kept legally separate (segregated) from the custodian’s own assets, meaning that if something goes wrong, the client has a proprietary right to the assets, not merely an unsecured claim.’
https://www.rt.com/russia/628892-frozen-assets-eu-stealing/
Interesting, thanks. I don’t think this means that the owner of record can’t pledge their shares as collateral, but I could be wrong.
“How an oil pipeline battle shows the US gaining sway in Iraq”
It says that Iranian militias attacked those pipelines – I wonder where they got that idea from. But considering how much the US has benefited from it, who is to say that those drones were not actually US drones? A sort of false flag attack.
If you view Trump’s policies as trying to support/increase prices for US oil producers, many irrational moves appear more sensible.
Pick your metaphor. The water is rising. Pressure is building. A storm is coming. My only question is will “it” arrive in one grand explosion or in spurts, but the trajectory for the West is down and fragmenting.
– ‘Democrats, Press Gloss Over Original “Double Tap” Operations’ – Racket News
Though this is not news to most NC readers, it is important to keep emphasizing this “Uniparty” history in order to understand that Trump is just a symptom of our long bipartisan policy trajectory. Taibbi and Collard are right to do so here. On the other hand, in terms of Taibbi’s own motives, he appears to have gone full-on partisan these days. His response to every outrageous action by the Trump administration now seems to be “but remember when the Democrats did X, Y, or Z?”. I was only able to read the non-paywalled portion of this piece, but he does say this:
“The alleged “double tap” second strike on September 2nd seems to have been an outlier in the Venezuela campaign (at least, there haven’t been additional allegations along those lines yet). However, as Qadri noted then and now (see the Q&A below), the United States employed “double tap” strikes as a regular strategy in drone campaigns all over the world after 9/11.”
“Alleged”? “Outlier”? Not exactly apologetics, but…
Of course the “original” double-tap tactic long predates the Obama administration’s drone strikes. I recall the Collateral Murder video, for example.
Apropos of nothing, but isn’t a ‘Double Tap’ something you do in ‘professional’ wrestling or UFC?
Israel has perfected the “Double Tap” to kill the emergency workers who arrive on the scene of an initial strike in Gaza.
China has set up it’s own big commodities trading firm in Shanghai. If successful there will likely be even more trading outside of the dollar and maybe there will even be commodities that overwhelmingly won’t be traded in dollars at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_DL3fBhoTU
I look forward to corrupt LME becoming redundant…
Michael green replies to critics of the $140,000 poverty level.
https://www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-2-the-door-has-opened
Thanks
A couple videos well worth a watch (or listen) about the current craziness in technology firms.
24 minute video going over the recent DRAM prices, Crucial, and the history of RAM companies operating as a cartel to fix prices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A-eeJP0J7c. They think that the end goal is to try and force people into “Hardware As A Service” by making home computing unaffordable for individuals. So more rentierism of now basic needs.
31 minute video covering more detail on the price history: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hLiwNViMak
The channel (Gamers Nexus) also has some deep dives into the AI and DRAM cluster***ks coming up in the next couple of months that should be worth keeping an eye out for.
Had my first confirmed phishing attack originating in Thailand this morning. Thievery is, as always, an International sport.
Stay safe.
Groper?
I’m not that lucky. It was a garden variety, “Thanks for your purchase” E-mail. “If you have issues with this purchase, please contact our customer service department at XYZ-ABC-LMNO.”
Yeah, I wish it was only Fans, but I’ll settle for a Turbo Massage.
Be as safe as you can be.
Whatever you do, Do Not Redeem! . (language warning+ possible coffee spills ahead)
I love that guy. He tags them all.
Very much agree! Kitboga was my introduction to the world of ‘scam baiting’, and he is so talented at it. Very cathartic and funny, and helps raise awareness to not get scammed at the same time. Plenty of the youtube comments (and from Kitboga in his other videos) from cashiers and other store employees about recognizing the scam happening with customers in their store and intervening to stop it.
An amazing statement considering the fact that many countries did do exactly this during the recent covid outbreak. If all countries had gotten together on this effort, instead of having a patchwork, the covid pandemic would have been very different. A fundamental issue is obviously international travelers constantly carrying the virus from one country to another, so an individual country has limits on what it can achieve.
Obviously the business community is trying to preemptively poison the ground for efforts to control the next pandemic, now that they have finally gotten everybody back into schools and offices since the start of the last pandemic.
The article by David Rovics: “YouTube, aka The Biggest Platform on Earth, Has Deleted All My Albums” reminded me of Cold War stories about artists who, because their creations were deemed unacceptable by the regime, were barred (either outright or sneakily, via endless bureaucratic complications that delayed their projects forever) from playing / performing / publishing, no longer got commissions, lost their stipends, possibly saw their former production become unavailable, were eventually obliged to find a livelihood as teachers or in purely technical activities, and, if found too refractory, left for an exile in the West.
It is astounding how little historical awareness is present in our society. The ever-increasing, comprehensive spying and snitching apparatus; the censorship that “disappears” the entire production of some artists and prevents others from showing theirs; the ostracism striking troublesome people, denied essential socio-economic facilities (de-banking, travel restrictions); the prohibition (even sanctioned by law) of arguing about important topics in any other way than what is prescribed by the prevalent doctrine. Everything that was lambasted about the USSR or the GDR. We are the bad guys now.
Fortunately they haven’t erased all David Rovics’ songs off you tube, though they are a lot harder to find.
Here are some classics:
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
My Daughter
I couldn’t find this one on youtube any more, Alligator Song
RE: “Beyond defence & oil, PM Modi & Putin build …” and
“US capital investments for something …”
Read these two links in tandem. The contrast between Putin and Trump’s approach to diplomacy is stark. While Putin and Xi build ties, Trump and the u.s. work angles for pecuniary gain to promote the interests of the MIC and Trump’s friends — “national security priorities”.
The NYT Dealbook gathering is a total freakshow this year. You gots Bibi, the Kirk widow, that Palantir nutjob CEO… Grey Lady down! Nat Wilson Turner, it would be so awesome if you could go there in person next year, if next year happens. Heck, I’d like to go there! On acid would be best, Gonzo style.
The root word of fungi, is fun.
I’d be tripping balls, somebody buy me a ticket.
It’s so Upper Crust that the fun must be between the buttons. Preferably the buttons of your vested interest.
Put the fun back into dysfunctional!
RE:Airline pilots lying about mental health issues.
I would extend this practice to every profession. You should never tell anyone at work about your mental health issues in a society where you need to work to survive.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, or the more traditional spelling Chanukah, to NC readers.
Handel’s ‘Messiah’ music, utube, ~4+ minutes.
Carols from King’s 2016 | #7 “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” | The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
Here is the musical utube link. Apologies for the earlier omission.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcIIZpnZPgo&list=RDqcIIZpnZPgo&start_radio=1
Raw warning …
2000 Meters to Andriivka full documentary FRONTLINE Doco
A stunning portrayal of war in the trenches from the Oscar®-winning team behind 20 Days in Mariupol. With The Associated Press, combat bodycam-footage and powerful moments of reflection, following a Ukrainian platoon trying to liberate a village.
I won’t link as it easy to search from ones own region e.g. being blocked.
One comment of note: Now imagine do all of this for the golden toilets of the politicians back in Kyiv…
Blessed be the pouch[Oz], 2x doggies, kids, 39yr old vintage clothes fan/artist GF, and my work … ta
I wouldn’t be surprised to read soon that Katheryn Bigelow has been tapped to make a reboot of “Battle for Algiers,” this time set in Brooklyn.
There are ‘movies,’ and then there is ‘cinema.’
Her remake will star George Clooney as the troubled French torturer.
Who would be the French znd who would be the Slgerisns, in Brooklyn? I’d have figured it’d be set in West Virginia or somewhere like that….
You should have a look mate, regardless of the director/production team. Its accurate enough wrt battlefield dynamics. Not to mention the Z-man curse as he did a photo op thingy in Andriivka only to lose it twice and at a huge cost.
Put it this way … UAF squads are being taken out in moments and with them any support vehicles. The MacCrazzy pants part is this 2000 meters is just a tree line kill zone and UAF just pushed troops endlessly into it.
That’s a quality guarantee.
I did not suggest it due to accolades. What I did suggest is having a peak at the meat grinder for the UAF combat troops ordered to move down 2 klicks along a treeline. Its basically all Go pro video worn by UAF troops.
Now go look at a map of the battlefield – its all tree lines with trenches or villages/cities. If one takes in how the RAF kill chain has evolved, new improved weapons, which they use a wide array of these systems to soften/destroy UAF men/materials and then send in small infantry teams …. To quote Judge Dredd’s coworker that flipped – people go in and meat comes out the other end.
Regardless of who made the doco its main observation is the attrition rate of UAF combat soldiers and materials at the time. With that mental picture one can move to the present in observing conditions along the battlefield front.
The newly issued (Nov. 2025) “National Security Strategy of the United States” proclaims on page 1 that: “Our elites badly miscalculated America’s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest.”
At this point in the U.S., there is only one fractious political coalition within the United States which has the potential to move in a more radical populist (popular sovereignty) direction as well as redefine the above sentence “…to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to their material, cultural and political interests” and that faction is presently labeled the MAGA populist right.
It is way past time for the Left in the United States to let the Democratic Party sink into a well-earned oblivion and begin to ponder how, for example, some of its better economic insights could be blended into something actually new and exciting and as yet completely unformed–a political coalition that suggests concrete policy proposals centered around unrelated citizens joining different types of associations that could cooperate in defining and realizing collective goods for the average individual and not the elite donor/oligarchic class.
It just might eventually mean a donor-class that could no longer define our national interest in terms of their material well-being.
this made me weep:
https://x.com/MatrixMysteries/status/1996913656555360476
And this is how you get a Luigi.
Yes. We need a “Luigi Award.” Any number can win it in any year.
(Saint Luigi is presently in court now.)
American 🇺🇸 Revolution 2 HERE WE COME!
Yea, fake just like the first one.
RE: Article about Aldo Leopold and the nature of rivers
The article mentions taking his son to view a river in northern Mexico (just south of the US border).
That trip was foundational for his son, Luna Leopold. Luna was awarded degrees in engineering, Physics, Geology. He became a scientific leader in hydro-geology and river systems in general. He wrote the very accessible book, A View of the River, among other important scientific treaties on hydro-geology. I had the pleasure of some of his lectures when he was a Professor of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley. Amazing man. I wish I could have conversed with his father. A Sand County Almanac should be required reading for everyone.
Big news in the trades–Netflix wins bid to buy Warner Brothers.
https://deadline.com/2025/12/netflix-warner-bros-takeover-analysis-reshape-business-1236637120/
https://jasonhickel.substack.com/p/how-popular-is-ecosocialist-transformation?
IMO Is worth the quick read to understand the power of a Name With a coupled explanation.
It’s a sample of 5,000.
Read the simple five concepts of ‘degrowth’
and it’s no wonder 3,750 got behind them.
I think the first two reflect Radical Conservation in its simplest form.
What’s the number one hold up?
Hickel says Capitalism.
I agree.
I think this study confirms Extinction Rebellion’s assertion that a 3-5% shift in public attitude can overturn our public policy.
Re Jewish history–an important read indeed. Here’s a key graf
The article says that assimilated Jews are rejecting not promoting this older form of Judaism and that same revolutionary “outside the box” spirit may account for the prominent role in analyzing their new environment. But the deep down appeal of tribal solidarity wars against the dispassion of the intellectuals and has given us Zionism as it has now evolved. No wonder psychiatrists are popular!
Not that we Baptists and assorted former snake handlers are immune from the irrational. But when genocide threatens to become normalized it’s time for adherents of ancient ideas to “snap out of it.” History (one hopes) is not on your side.