The Politics Of Planetary Color Noema
How IVF has led to a record number of single moms in their 40s NPR
The Best States For Raising A Family In 2026 StudyFinds
Collection Agency: Crunching the Numbers with a Calculator Collector Inconspicuous Consumption
Oil’s Problem Isn’t Iran or Russia — It’s Too Much Oil OilPrice
Revolutionary imaging of black hole aims to prove they are not ‘evil vacuum cleaners’ The Guardian
Climate/Environment
Davos
As Trump reshapes global order, World Economic Forum starts in Davos today Firstpost
Pandemics
That collapse in SATs since the pandemic began. All catastrophes reboot societies. The status quo has tried desperately to rush everybody back to their old routines, ignoring public health.
The old status quo still broke. I’m seeing this ‘checking-out’ across all parts of life. pic.twitter.com/MhSfyDC2Aa
— Henry Madison (@RageSheen) January 18, 2026
A plea to those no longer masking M (Is) Living With Long Covid
The Koreas
Cheese-flavored spicy noodles are powering South Korea’s food exports to a record high CNBC
Japan
Takaichi enjoys popularity amid Japan’s rightward turn East Asia Forum
China?
China’s Q4 GDP growth slows to 3-year low, full-year pace meets official target Business Times
The Bridge at the Center of the Pentagon Michael McNair. On Elbridge Colby and his China strategy.
The China Commission’s Report ChinaTalk. An incredible comment from Leland Miller, the co-founder and CEO of China Beige Book, who was appointed to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission by Speaker Mike Johnson:
A potential nightmare scenario is China breaking quantum cryptography, achieving AGI, or making some other enormous breakthrough in AI first. Imagine they cure cancer. A shock would go through the system as we’ve never seen — our approach would have failed…We want someone to cure cancer, but we don’t want China to control the pipeline for that cure.
***
What the U.S.-Taiwan deal means for the island’s ‘silicon shield’ CNBC
Taiwan’s Silicon Shield Has Been Sold Out by President Lai
Taiwan’s greatest strategic asset has never been its navy, its air force, or even its alliances. It has been the silicon shield— it’s semiconductor industry, led by TSMC, which binds the world’s economy to Taiwan’s… pic.twitter.com/IuwUug9uQE
— Ignis Rex (@Ignis_Rex) January 19, 2026
Syraqistan
Trump ‘wants nations to pay $1bn to join his Gaza peace board’ The Telegraph
Is Israel The Bankrupt Colony? Frame The Globe News
WOW!
At the Israeli-American Council, Miriam Adelson is asked how she is buying influence over American politicians.
Recognizing that it probably isn’t smart for her to talk openly about this, she hesitates and answers:
“Can you allow me not to answer? … I want to be… pic.twitter.com/gOGXm8xMDR
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) January 18, 2026
***
Trump to POLITICO: ‘It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran’ Politico
Any attack against Ayatollah Khamenei ‘full-fledged’ war with Iranian nation: President Press TV
WOW. Strategic advisor to Iran’s Parliament Speaker, Mahdi Mohammadi:
“We know that we are facing a regime-change war in which the only way to achieve victory is to make credible the threat that, during the 12-day war, although it was ready, did not get the opportunity to be…
— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) January 19, 2026
The anti-Iran human rights bazaar Al Mayadeen
***
Syrian forces seize major oil, gas fields in eastern Syria Al Mayadeen
Syria reaches ceasefire with SDF, wins ‘significant concessions from Kurds’ The Cradle
Africa
New Scrutiny of Nigeria Strikes as Activist’s Data Unravels Antiwar
European Disunion
The Psychological Stake in Greenland Simplicius
🇩🇪🇬🇱 Fifteen German soldiers deployed to Greenland abruptly left the island today without explanation, Bild reports.
The outlet captured footage of the German troops departing from Nuuk. According to Bild, the return order was issued early in the morning, with all meetings and… pic.twitter.com/AXebfPyfjo
— DD Geopolitics (@DD_Geopolitics) January 18, 2026
Bessent on Greenland: “Peace through strength. Make it part of the US and there will not be a conflict because the US right now, we’re the hottest country in the world, we’re the strongest country in the world. Europeans project weakness. The US projects strength.” pic.twitter.com/NQYuvNpsC3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 18, 2026
China and Russia must be having a field day. They are the ones who benefit from divisions among Allies.
If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside NATO.
Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity.
We also…
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) January 17, 2026
Will Trump’s Threat to Increase Tariffs on Europe Spark a Financial Crisis? Larry Johnson
High-speed train crash in southern Spain leaves at least 21 dead The Guardian
Old Blighty
Trump administration demands Britain adopt US standards in trade talks Politico
New Not-So-Cold War
Europe already ‘at war’ with Russia, says central banker FT
Military intelligence entraps parliament Events in Ukraine
Ukraine is fighting a war with money Europe doesn’t have Ian Proud
Germany Denies Baltic Sea Entry to Shadow Fleet Tanker ‘Tavian’ in Unprecedented Move gCaptain
THE WHITE HOUSE ARCHIVE — WHAT VLADIMIR PUTIN CONFIDED TO GEORGE W. BUSH, WHAT HE MEANS NOW John Helmer
South of the Border
US air authority warns of ‘military activities’ over Mexico, South America Al Jazeera
Weekend Read: Did this Cyberweapon Open the “Pathway” to Caracas? The After-Action Report
Police State Watch
Trump orders active duty troops to prepare for Minnesota deployment Politico
YIKES: If this is true … and I’m skeptical it is until I see local reporting. But it’s bad.
Alerting the 11th Airborne was UNAMBIGUIOUS indicator for an invasion of Greenland I wrote a year ago.
Minnesota would be a good place to interim stage these forces in the lower 48.… https://t.co/AfLMvQ2urP
— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 18, 2026
FBI opened probe on Minneapolis shooting; none exists now, Justice Dept. says WaPo
Lawyers allege Dept. of Homeland Security is denying legal counsel to Minnesota detainees ABC News
Minneapolis AFL-CIO Calls for General Strike on Friday as Movement Spreads to Other Cities Payday Report
this is what it has come to for Mexican restaurants in the Twin Cities pic.twitter.com/RhbZ3xDhfQ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 19, 2026
Democrats en déshabillé
Every House Democrat Votes Against Defunding A Cutout Of The CIA. The Dissident
Dems’ divide over Harris surfaces as she looks like a 2028 contender Axios
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Imperial Epithet in the Liberal Imagination Un-Diplomatic
Trump vs. Penguins, or Whatever Happened to America? Marat Khairullin Substack
Where is the world headed? Nuclear war, WW3 or just plain old Global Capitalist resource capture? Vanessa Beeley and Fiorella Isabel
Accelerationists
Why Silicon Valley is really talking about fleeing California (it’s not the 5%) TechCrunch
Guillotine Watch
Billionaires’ wealth hits record in 2025, Oxfam warns of ‘dangerous’ political risks ahead of Davos France24
Democracy’s Edge: Elite Overproduction Simon Pearce
The Bezzle
More than half of all crypto tokens have failed — and most died in 2025 CoinDesk
The Disclosure of Aliens Could Cause a Bitcoin Rush, Former Bank of England Analyst Says Gizmodo
AI
A Man Bought Meta’s AI Glasses, and Ended Up Wandering the Desert in Search of Aliens Futurism
Experiment suggests AI chatbot would save insurance agents a whopping 3 minutes a day The Register
Sequoia to invest in Anthropic, breaking VC taboo on backing rivals: FT TechCrunch
The Real AI Talent War Is for Plumbers and Electricians Wired
The shape of time Aeon
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘Aaron Rupar
@atrupar
Bessent on Greenland: “Peace through strength. Make it part of the US and there will not be a conflict because the US right now, we’re the hottest country in the world, we’re the strongest country in the world. Europeans project weakness. The US projects strength.” ‘
In all this talk of the threats to Greenland, nobody is pointing out the obvious. That out of some 200 countries in the world, there is in fact only one country threatening Greenland. China would not bother as Greenland is on the other side of the planet and they could never supply their forces. In fact, Greenlanders have said that they have not see a Chinese navy ship in over a decade. Russia won’t for much the same reasons. Only the Trump regime is threatening a country on the edges of the Arctic and make no mistake. It won’t stop with Greenland but Iceland will be next up and Trump is already demanding that Canada fortify their northern borders so he has not forgotten Canada either.
Tbh I think Trump 1000% believes in global warming and has his sights on securing his place in the history books by founding a real northern empire for us all to move into.
I suspect that “all” won’t include the likes of thee and me…
Florida man has to go somewhere
Trump aspires to become a tsar and believes that a frozen wasteland would be the ideal place to banish his enemies.
From the NYTimes, no paywall.
Buy Greenland? Take It? Why? An Old Pact Already Gives Trump a Free Hand.
Analysts say the Cold War agreement allows the president to increase the American military presence almost at will.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/world/europe/trump-greenland-denmark-us-defense-pact.html
So if it’s not really about the military, could it really be about the minerals?
I guess.
But even then none of this makes sense.
The US could easily deal with the EU, let them do the digging and take most of the profit.
Without any of this bluster.
But if Obama was all about style. Trump is too…
No need to overthink this, because our President sure isn’t.
Yves, as usual, nailed it: It’s about enhancing the size of his, er, staff.
See Yves article today, it may be about silicon billionaires uae style city state dreams
Bessent: “…the US right now, we’re the hottest country in the world, we’re the strongest country in the world.”
No doubt the good people of Greenland could use some heat, but Bessent’s remarks put me in mind of the Bob and Ray sketch in which a boy insists that his dog, Tippy, is “the greatest, smartest dog in the whole wide world.” [1]
[1] https://dn720700.ca.archive.org/0/items/bobandraycompletecollection/Bob_and_Ray_Audio/A%20Night%20Of%20Two%20Stars%20%5BDisc%202%5D/2-06%20Tippy%20the%20Wonder%20Dog.mp3
This madness from Trump seems like the speed run bucket list for a dying egomaniac trying to cement his place in US history.
“Solving” the intractable foreign policy problems of the 20th century: taking down socialist Venezuela & Cuba (next up?); presiding over a massive expansion of US territory à la McKinley
Maybe he just recently got a diagnosis of “months to live”…?
https://xcancel.com/AIPAC/status/2011568638378082387
https://xcancel.com/RoKhanna/status/2012298777286115736
https://xcancel.com/RoKhanna/status/2012301652158566873
There are some gems in there from all those exchanges with Mr. Khanna:
>Can you clarify what you mean by “snuck these in”? Did you not know they were in there when you voted for it? Asking in earnest
>I genuinely did not
>Next question is whether you knew Randy Fine was cartoonishly Islamophobic and genocidal when you said you were proud to stand side-by-side with him
>Again, no. First time met him or heard of him. Have since seen his disgusting statements.
At this point why even vote for representatives or senators, in a few years we will probably have CongressAI Clanker to rubber stamp any bill produced by AIPAC or whatever other lobby. Save everyone time, money and legitimacy. Everyone wins!
File under the Bezzle, Venezuela, and (coming soon) Greenland.
From Shanaka Anslem Pereze’s substact:
The Sovereign Wipeout: How America Just Erased $150 Billion in Creditor Claims and Rewrote the Rules of Default
https://shanakaanslemperera.substack.com/p/the-sovereign-wipeout-how-america
First two paras:
The $150 billion in claims against Venezuelan assets that distressed debt specialists have accumulated over the past decade will recover approximately zero, and the institutional money positioned for traditional restructuring dynamics is about to discover that the rules governing sovereign default have been rewritten without their consent.
On January 14, 2026, the Trump administration completed its first sale of Venezuelan crude oil under a legal architecture that explicitly blocks every pathway creditors have historically used to recover value from defaulted sovereigns. The proceeds, roughly $500 million from 4.8 million barrels, were deposited in accounts controlled by the United States Treasury and domiciled in Qatar, structured with surgical precision to ensure that ConocoPhillips and its $12 billion in claims, Crystallex and its $1.4 billion judgment, and the fifteen other registered creditors holding stakes in CITGO’s $19 to $21 billion parent company will receive nothing from this revenue stream or any subsequent flows captured under Executive Order 14373.
Looks like Paul Singer got his squeeze from Venezuelan just in time.
“Debts that can’t be paid, won’t be paid”- Michael Hudson
Inferring that it comes down to how. My initial reaction was that vultures won’t be happy, and a “tell” would be if/how they react or respond. Which may provide clues into the “longer term thinking”.
IMHO, it seems more and more like a global restructuring of financial controls, being constructed behind an “America first” nationalist papier-mâché façade. Where the US role seems will be military muscle for hire. With the kidnapping of the legitimate and constitutionally ratified Venezuelan president as “proof of concept”. Also, the CIA’s too public posturing, a signaling of its waning relevance.
Are they fucking around with Big Oil’s money? That might just be the pathway to their downfall.
China: tl;dr Pentagon and the government need to take equity stakes in industry. ROFL: to beat a centralized command economy you have to become a centralized command economy. The central and tragic weaknesses of our republic and its addiction to capitalism are being exposed in real time and even being recognized by elite policy makers.
Republic?!?
When? Where!?!
I haven’t seen anything like that since, hmmmm sometime in the early 60s, or at the latest the early 90s when electeds still sort of responded to voter preferences. We thought “the end of history” justified the end of politics, the winners of that moment would be the winners forever, and so they have been. Until reality intervenes, which it’s been loth to do because we’ve made our selves Atomic Infants with no manifest impulse control.
Trump links Greenland threat to Nobel Peace Prize snub, EU eyes trade retaliation Reuters
In case there is any doubt that our dear leader’s marbles have gone missing.
“Ukraine is fighting a war with money Europe doesn’t have”
That’s OK. The Ukrainians no longer have the troops to fight this war and the US and Europe cannot keep up with weapons manufacture to fight it. But I would dearly love to know how much money has been pumped into the black hole of the Ukraine. At a minimum I would reckon half a trillion dollars but I think that it is much, much more than that.
Yesterday I watched History Legend’s 2025 wrap up and thoughts about 2026. Often I find his videos beyond me with detailed battle analysis but this video was pretty good and concludes as you do. Despite significant improvements and reforms the AFU effected in 2025, they won’t have enough people to feed into the fight even if they had the means to pay and successfully train, equip and command them.
I would like to know who ended up with the money and how much went to whom. And where is the money now?
As an example, remember that $90 billion package that Ursula put together the other day? Turns out that only $30 billion will go to the Ukraine while the other $60 billion will be for weapons purchases. The whole place is a huge washing machine were taxpayers money goes in, gets churned around and newly minted billionaires come out the other end. Just like Julian Assange explained-
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1547752702511263745
Who knew that it was NATO that was “arming itself” with washing machines and not Russia. Maybe we owe vDL an apology for thinking her “washing machine” reference was literal.
According to a family friend familiar with the scene, some of the democracy and freedom money ended up in the Russian-Ukrainian Jewish community in Vienna. At least temporarily. I understand some people there have familial and/or business contacts within Ukraine’s government and/or organised crime world. Better than just burning it, I think. Surely there are other such hubs elsewhere too.
If I understand the numbers correctly (from ukraineoversight.gov), of the $187 billion appropriated since 2022, only $94 billion has actually been disbursed and of that only $30 billion as direct monetary support to government of Ukraine.
$64 billion has been used for weapons, training and all kinds of NGO-lead projects and initiatives.
For example, $30 billion is still waiting to be obligated, half of which will go to restocking US armories – not to arm Ukraine.
It’s a mess. And as The Rev Kev says, billionaires have been created.
I’ve been hearing that Ukraine has been running out of troops for several years, yet every military map of the disposition of troops I see (like Marat’s) shows Ukrainian units facing opposing Russian units on every front, and they are giving ground very grudgingly and sometimes counterattacking. So something is not right with how Ukraine’s strength is being portrayed. Either they have and are continuing to recruit mercenaries to do a major share of their fighting or their native troop numbers are just not as reduced as we keep reading. Russia is making progress slowly, but they are far from steamrolling the AFU. I assume Russia’s stepped up missile/drone war is intended to speed up the pace and signal that their hopes for any diplomatic solution from Trump are close to exhausted.
Ukraine was supposed to run out of ammo, at least two years ago (I recall pundits claiming NATO couldn’t make enough artillery shells.)
OTOH, Russian economy was supposed to collapse because of the sanctions West imposed…after the Crimean annexation.
Most wartime reportage is crap, which is why I confine myself to the crudest possible analysis: (a) neither government has fallen, (b) neither army has run away.
NATO doesn’t make enough artillery shells.That’s one reason for trying to replace artillery with drones.
Indeed, there is a lot of ruin in both nations, though I’ve been thinking for a while now that Ukraine may be where we’ll find out exactly how much a 21st century country can withstand. Hopefully not, but it seems to me that currently neither our decisionmakers nor theirs have much cause to seek an end to the war. It has become politically comfortable and, in some cases, financially profitable; and if there finally is a sudden collapse, I’m sure the bulk of them can get away.
From Energy News Beat:
How President Trump Changed the Global Oil Market and Sold Venezuelan Oil
”
In a bold and unprecedented move, President Donald Trump has reshaped the global oil landscape by orchestrating the U.S. takeover of Venezuela’s oil sector following the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro. This January 2026 intervention not only marked the end of Maduro’s regime but also positioned the United States as the direct manager of the world’s largest proven oil reserves—over 303 billion barrels. By selling Venezuelan crude on the international market and strategically routing proceeds through Qatar, Trump has bypassed traditional legal and financial hurdles, potentially flooding the market with additional supply and challenging the dominance of OPEC and OPEC+. Yet, this strategy comes at a crossroads: Venezuela’s oil industry requires prices around $75 per barrel to thrive, while Trump has publicly aimed for $55 oil or lower to benefit American consumers and industry. Here’s how this dramatic shift unfolded and what it means for global energy dynamics.
The sequence began on January 3, 2026, with U.S. special forces capturing Maduro amid political turmoil in Caracas. Just three days later, on January 6, Trump announced that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela’s oil sector indefinitely, framing it as a means to stabilize the country and monetize its vast resources. This was followed by an executive order on January 9 that shielded Venezuelan oil revenues from creditor claims, effectively nullifying $170 billion in outstanding debts to bondholders, oil companies, and nations like China. By January 14, the U.S. had completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil, valued at $500 million, as part of a broader $2 billion deal.”
https://energynewsbeat.co/how-president-trump-changed-the-global-oil-market-and-sold-venezuelan-oil/
So if I understand the above, Venezuela could not sell oil in the US where it wanted to because of sanctions, but now it is, and Venezuela gets much-needed diluents and oil infrastructure spending while the big guy takes his cut. Sounds like sanctions relief, which Maduro offered. And Trump even nixed the vulture claims against Venezuela. TACO?
Venezuela has been increasing its oil production steadily, with oil at a discount using Chinese technology, so that I would treat the $75 as an ideal, with the critical level much lower.
re: China US Pharma
Patent cliffhanger: will China biotech throw Big Pharma a lifeline?
US drug makers are racing to plug looming ‘patent cliff’ revenue gaps – and increasingly they are turning to China biotechs
https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/3337038/patent-cliffhanger-will-china-biotech-throw-big-pharma-lifeline
– ‘The anti-Iran human rights bazaar’ – Al Mayadeen
This is a useful article, and compliments the one by Alan Macleod posted yesterday. The useful idiotness of the liberal and “progressive” media never ceases to amaze me. I’ve already commented a few times on Democracy Now – no surprise there. But after praising Dropsite News for its Epstein investigations, all of the sudden Ryan Grim is popping up everywhere talking about the terrible regime violence against those peaceful protesters, based on extremely suspect sources, including one anonymous protester who said this:
“The way that the gov’t of Iran has responded to the protests, every single person in Iran would happily join any intelligence service to end this regime”
As Max Blumenthal responded: “Every single Iranian would sign up for the Mossad?”
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/2012659903324684405
Even the mainstream media has allowed some truth to trickle out about the sources of violence in last week’s protest. I read a Financial Times article that, while spinning, essentially admitted that the original protesters were peaceful and *protected* by the police, then things seemed to suddenly turn violent. While not saying so directly, the story definitely implied that the violence originated with the protesters.
Yet the Amy Goodmans and Ryan Grims of the world continue to provide “humanitarian” cover for the propagandists. Aarrggh!
There is nothing unbelievable about some protester saying that, though (it reminds me of: “anyone who’s happy with how things are in Russia must be a German spy”). What would be foolish is taking it as a literal statement of fact, or as anything other than a hyperbolic expression of that one protester’s own anger.
For that matter, it seems entirely plausible that there were all of those things at once:
1) Peaceful protesters
2) Violent “protesters” and/or agents saboteur and/or entryist militants and/or foreign spies, and also likely people who started out peaceful but ended up violent
3) Excessive government violence against protesters
4) Amply justified government violence against protesters
It is a big country, after all, plenty of room for all of that. Without knowing much about the actual situation, I find the insistence in some sources that it had to be just 1 and 3 OR just 2 and 4 to be the most suspicious thing.
It appears to me that a key tradecraft for organised peaceful protest is the train every peaceful protestor to detect provocateurs and detain them under video immediately. Will be interesting how many turn out to be paid agitators.
Back in the day, we organized ourselves into “affinity groups” and underwent intensive and mandatory non-violence training. We always had legal observers & support structures. We were trained to isolate isolate provocateurs. IMO, this kind of organizing needs to be implemented quickly.
I agree. Any situation of this kind is inherently very complex, and you can find something to support virtually any assertion. The evidence of large-scale state repression is clear enough that there’s no need to make stuff up. And I’m sure that, here or elsewhere, somebody has already claimed that this is a “false flag” operation by the regime to keep it in power.
What’s interesting is that the default reaction of outside observers confronted with an unexpected development like this has, at least since the French Revolution, been to blame dark forces from outside. It made me recall that when Iran last blew up in 1978-79 the explanation of a whole crew of “strategic experts” was that, since Iranians by and large loved the Shah, it must be the work of the KGB. The idea that we do not control the dynamics of other political systems, and that even influencing them substantially can be very difficult, cuts directly across the arrogance which has characterised the western strategic mind since the end of the Cold War, and its belief that it understands everything without the tedious business of acquiring actual knowledge.
I agree with your point in general. The problem, as usual, is the near complete dominance of those in our media and among our politicos who insist that it is only 1 and 3. So when so-called “progressives” provide yet another platform for this one-sided perspective it simply serves to amplify our propaganda rather than inform. Most of those whose commentary I trust, who also tend to have good contacts in Iran, acknowledge all four to be the case. Max Blumenthal provides a pretty good overview of events based on what information slowly seems to be leaking out from various sources (including those in the West supporting regime change) in a recent interview with Scott Horton:
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/2012659903324684405
Regarding Aurelien’s comment, I agree that the situation in Iran is very complex, and I would certainly agree about the arrogance of the Western strategic mind. But the “dark forces from outside” seeking to destabilize Iran are well-known and well documented, both by those within the country and those of us who are mere outsiders looking in. Max discusses some of these, including some of the usual suspects like the MEK that do not seem to be as involved this time as they have been in the past.
Sorry, wrong link. I meant to post this one from Scott Horton’s interview with Blumenthal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD4HBB1yHFc
Judge Napolitano and Alastair Crooke. utube. ~30+ minutes.
Alastair Crooke : Trump’s Iran Blunders — and False Hopes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlBOPgzJAK0
“Cheese-flavored spicy noodles are powering South Korea’s food exports…”
I read this link on the cheese flavored spicy Korean noodles but I missed mention of which of the noodles were the cheese flavored spicy noodles that are so popular.
Seems like the Samyang Buldak instant noodles which come with a spicy flavor packet and a powdered cheese packet. There’s a pic of the pink packaging at the end of the article. Safeway and Kroger sell them.
I have a pack of these “Artificial Spicy Chicken Flavor” in my house and the texture of the noodles is pretty good.
But at 1,330 mg of sodium, 58% of your daily value, and 10 grams or 50% of your daily value of saturated fat, I’d encourage caution. I drink a full glass of water before eating them and share half with someone else.
Samyang Buldak is popular at my house (not with me… my stomach is a more than a bit afraid of the packets). But when it comes to sodium packed food, maybe the South Koreans are just following U.S. soups. For example, Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Sausage Gumbo soup is a whopping 1,720mg of sodium (technically 2 servings, but really close to a “lunch” for someone).
I too have begun to limit my intake of the ‘standard’ oriental ramen packets to one half at a sitting. I also check the ingredients list so as to screen out those using monosodium glutamate in the flavouring mix. (This can cover most of the brands available at our Oriental Grocery shop.) As a rule, I also only use approximately a half of any “spicy” flavour packet per cookup.
As usual, YMMV.
Stay safe.
Thanks! I think I might pass on the cheese flavored ramen. Tonight I ate some cheap store brand vermicelli dressed with olive oil and a covering of shredded Romano cheese. That was tasty although not spicy. The inexpensive vermicelli reminds me of the white noodles my Chinese ex-wife called wedding noodles. For spicy I guess I might try adding some gochujang sauce to my cheese and olive oil.
With conjectures of stroke, dementia and white matter disease circulating, we were speculating yesterday in Links comments about Trump’s specific pathology. This morning after our porridge I asked Ms .Tom and she disagreed with my view that it must be idiotpathic bloviating encephalopathy and suggested instead refractory ego inflammation.
I’d simply describe it as diarrhea of the mouth complicated by constipation of the brain.
“Dems’ divide over Harris surfaces as she looks like a 2028 contender”
Things must be pretty bad with the Dems when many think that Kamala Harris is the solution to their problems. You may as well run Hilary Clinton again. Running with a female candidate makes sense but you need someone that will take on Trump in a debate and be able to disassemble him & take him down. Kamala Harris is not that women.
Did you forget that Trump can’t run again?
Can’t *not equals* won’t.
I thought about that but I would not put it past Trump to change the laws so that he can run for a third term. He has talked about doing so last year remember. He has enough ego to think that he can pull it off.
Why bother changing the law? This administration has ignored US law, international law, and treaties blatantly and has intiated multiple relatiatory prosecutions and gov. service firings.
“Justice Taney has issued his decision. Now let him enforce it.”
“The Pope?? How many divisions does he have?”
Does Trump know that? Or even care?
I can hear the Sergeant at Arms of the Congress calling out to the assembled Members of Congress:
“All Hail President for Life Donald Trump!”
That word “contender” is doing a lot of work here. “Contender” for what? Harris was bringing up the rear in a crowded Democratic field before she dropped out in 2020. Yet she was foisted on us anyway as VP, then foisted on us again as a flawed and unpopular Presidential candidate in 2024. I suppose she could be a “contender” if the field in 2028 is even weaker – which I suppose it could be. But come on.
This comment is exactly what I was going to say. After her massive failures in the 2020 primaries and the 2024 election, the onus of proof is definitely on whoever is pushing these articles to give us some sort of evidence that there’s actually any real support for her, other than the usual smattering of anecdotes across the country (1% of America is still 3 million people after all and if you put them all in a stadium you would say “wow, that’s a lot”, but you won’t win an election).
Could the GOP be playing “Turnabout is Fair Play,” and running their own Pied Piper strategy against the DNC?
This came up in the comments yesterday – and I really want to make sure the commenters and Yves understand my thinking and why I say what I say.
We are all about to have a big lesson in dealing with patients with white matter disease. I am of the firm opinion after the past 10 years or so that this country must have an amendment to the Constitution to restrict the Presidency to those under 60 or so. We have this going on – and we had another one with classic, obvious signs of neurodegenerative dementia and a political and media class who refused to say a word.
I have attended countless autopsies in my life. Most people are unaware, but when a full autopsy is done, the brain is actually carefully removed from the skull, placed in a bucket of formaldehyde, and then we all come back 3 weeks later for what is called “neuropathology” conference. Where all the brains that have had enough time in the aldehyde are taken out and carefully dissected. FYI, this is but one of the reasons why autopsy reports are not instant. It takes weeks for everything to be done.
When I was a young doctor, watching these all the time, it became very clear that we had an epidemic in this country. The presence of varying degrees of white matter disease was very plain in so many of these brains. The GRAY MATTER in the brain is on the outside. These are the cell centers where all the work is done. The WHITE MATTER is largely in the inside of the brain and it consists of massive bundles of “wires” – extensions of these cells in the gray matter where they are all connected to each other. Fat is the insulating agent for these wires and it is white – and thus these entire areas have a whitish sheen. And what we see all the time in autopsy and in MRI reports in so many Americans is that these white matter areas are torn through with thousands of microscopic strokes. Strokes so small that they may take out only one or two of these wires and in the early stages, the wires have a way of rewiring themselves around the dead areas. As the strokes continue to multiply, the white matter becomes more and more like Swiss cheese and eventually the rewiring is not able to happen. Random, unrelated parts of the brain in general, and very specific microscopic connections begin to not happen. This is often seen by others as behavior changes, eccentricity, very magnified baseline behavior that the person was once able to suppress, short term memory loss, temper tantrums, but also just hilarious behavior. Kids love grandparents that have this problem. The death stare of Alzheimer’s is just not present. The person can feed and clothe themselves and are often remarkably self-sufficient given how dysfunctional they are. As the white matter gets more and more taken up with this, the symptoms continue to worsen. The person may eventually exhibit what we would normally call dementia type findings but this is after years and decades of worsening. Massive arm and leg deficiencies are not a part of this – UNLESS the underlying condition of the arteries has caused major arteries to be sick – and they can stroke from those……
What causes the underlying arterial issues? This medical condition is seen the world over in older people – but in the USA it is literally epidemic. Smoking, sedentary lifestyles, and the eating of fake food ( lots of vegetable oil and processed fast food like KFC and McDonald’s, donuts, and tortilla chips etc) are thought to be largely responsible. Running your BP higher than it should be for decades as well. This is a cumulative damage over many decades type of situation. Your grandparents referred to this problem as “hardening of the arteries”. It is very real and so common that I see this in my office and the nursing home multiple times a day.
I am very concerned this is what we are dealing with Trump right now. He is not demented. He does not have the look. He is too well held together. But he is definitely having obvious issues with behavior, memory, and the constant making stuff up is very common with this problem. This making stuff up has a medical name called confabulation. It is very common with this——not so common in dementia except in the very early phases. His underlying personality traits and disorders are being profoundly magnified and slowly but surely losing their filter. I have honestly never seen him in front of a well-prepared healthy meal at a state dinner, etc. I have seen him constantly eating KFC and McDonald’s…..His life must have been a stress bucket – and that is one of the causes as well.
Again, this process is very gradual. We are all about to have a lesson in what happens to the victims of this problem. Over the years, I have seen repeatedly and commonly the chaos these people cause in their families. I become more and more concerned about the chaos that can be caused on a national level.
With respect, DT’s confabulation has been part of his personality for years, as has speaking before thinking. I suspect that he enjoys the effect on his audience when he tells an obvious lie, and doubles down on it, and later denies it under fake news.
When I write these comments, there is a big problem. For obvious reasons, I cannot write out an entire lecture like I can when I am with students.
The concept of confabulation in medicine is likely very different than what most people think of confabulation in the world outside of medicine. In medicine, confabulation is not the same as lying. It is not the same as exaggerating. Those are willful and purposeful. If you want to look at Presidents who were very good at this, you can look no further than Barack Obama or George W Bush.
Confabulation in medicine has everything to do with the dysfunction of the short term memory and the executive function of the brain. The difference between lying and confabulation is sometimes very difficult to tease out even for people like me who have been doing this for decades. Students have a very difficult time with this as well as the families around these patients. Confabulation is seen when the patient either a) cannot remember exact details of things that just happened in the past few minutes to days or b) cannot correctly process what just happened in the past few minutes to days. They are then asked questions or put in a position to have to respond physically or verbally to said events and not being able to recall them they just make stuff up. The stuff being made up very likely has some hook into reality – the conclusions are understandable, etc. but they are completely unmoored from the reality of the current situation. They then may act on things that have been confabulated and do grave damage to themselves or others. I, for example, just last week was dealing with a patient who sold hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock/retirement because of his own confabulated event cycle. This is not lying. This is an attempt to make others around you feel like you are still “with it”.
Trump has always been an exaggerator. Of that, there is no question. Several months ago, however, I started to notice that he was interpreting things like videos or documents that we could all see in a way completely untethered to reality. This was different. I even hinted to the medical group on this site that I was seeing things suddenly that I found concerning – but I wanted more time to see if it was repeated.
I hate to say what I am about to say – but it needs to be thought about. The 25th Amendment is a thing. A very important thing. And look, my entire life, I have been around so many elders in medicine. Many of whom suffered from this same issue and yet were still awesome to be around and could still impart wisdom and encouragement to the students. But there came a time with many of them when it was clear they needed to put the stethoscope down. I can tell you from knowing very well the people who had to be responsible to enforce that – I am not sure there is a harder professional thing to do. It is profoundly difficult but it is the moral and correct thing to do for the safety of everyone – including the person.
The past 4 years demonstrated in a crystal clear fashion that the Democratic Party and its leadership had no such moral underpinnings. The entire affair is among the most craven immoral things I have ever seen. And our news media is right there with them. They all completely failed the test. The same is now being set up for the GOP – we will all see how this plays out.
Thanks Doc, I think it’s important to make these distinctions. I’m sure many of us enjoy calling Trump a variety of names, but it’s important to consider the truth around him as well.
This is the first I’m hearing of White Matter Disease so I’ll definitely look into it more. I’m curious – was this something you saw in every single autopsy? Is it possible that these mini-strokes are just a normal event that occurs in brains?
They are most certainly not in every single autopsy. It is mainly a problem seen in those over 50 – and they often have other medical issues – the two most common with this are diabetes and sleep apnea. Also years of elevated blood pressure. It was of varying degrees in the older patients – and each year I have gotten older, it seems like it is becoming more and more common and also much worse. You can literally look at an autopsy and tell just how bad this is – it ranges from a few divets to massive lesions everywhere.
But the other thing I would add that is very important. We do brain MRIs in medicine for a lot of issues. These lesions are very visible in the white matter even without contrast, therefore, if present you can see them on any brain MRI. So many times, this is unexpectedly present and I have to explain this to the patient. I seem to be doing this much more often as the years go by. There is nothing to be done about the disease already present. However, if this is there, one should immediately begin to work on modifying risk factors – CPAP for sleep apnea if present, good BP control, knock off the fast food, walk, quit smoking etc.
I had an episode like this and came across an article concerning this: EID Journal: Thrombotic Events and Stroke in the Year After COVID-19 or Other Acute Respiratory Infection.
https://afludiary.blogspot.com/2026/01/eid-journal-thrombotic-events-and.html
…and maybe this is why Trump’s brain MRI wasn’t released ?
Thanks, IMDoc.
Larry Johnson comes to the same medical layman’s conclusion about T and and the 25th Amendment. Not that T’s sycophantic Cabinet will ever go along with invoking the 25th Amendment
Larry Johnson with Judge Nap on utube, ~29+ minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmfKt_gOayw
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy than Trump’s cabinet, especially JD Vance. I can think of only two reasons why they would hesitate to invoke the 25th amendment on Trump: (1) they already decided to poison him instead, or (2) they think it will be more advantageous to wait a little while longer.
I expect Trump to be gone by November.
From what I am seeing, he is already “gone.”
Someone confabulating is not lying, in their own mind. They believe what they are saying even if they are not sure where their explanation came from, and may be saying it to test it out on themselves to reaffirm it. It sounds right to them. Once they say whatever the confabulated fact or explanation is, they are sure it must be true thereafter.
Really, what people call “hallucination” in AI is superficially more like confabulation.
Kind of, but not really.
Yes – I agree they believe their chain of thought and their conclusions are the truth. They may very well act on it. The problem with these patients is they may or may not have any recollection of the entire situation in just hours or days. There is no “they are sure it must be true thereafter”.
What you are describing is someone who is actually a liar – who is fully with it – and has to constantly be adding all their new lies on top of the old lies. Eventually, they start believing their own lies. That is a purposeful long-term decision. This is not really what happens with these patients. This is what I am saying – it is often very difficult to tease out this behavior when dealing with patients.
Well, that’s my mother you’re talking about. And I would not say she was a liar, she would just reach for an explanation where she didn’t really know or remember the answer and would concoct something from random bits of whatever was going through her head. Then once she had the idea in her head, it stuck. It was always something that sounded plausible to her, even if it had me rolling my eyes. She was very, very old and often confused about anything that was other than the daily routine in its simplest form. The not remembering what you say or that you even had the conversation sounds more like Korsakoff’s syndrome, which one of my aunts had (I suspect she and her husband were suffering from some kind of long-term non-lethal poisoning). If you walked out of the room for five minutes she wouldn’t remember you had been there before when you came back (and it was a bit random who she thought you were other than someone vaguely familiar).
re: “Someone confabulating is not lying, in their own mind.”
Very possibly so. However, do you want someone who is confabulating, who is not lying in their own mind, but who is still confabulating wrt facts, directing US foreign policy?
See also the 1994 movie: The Madness of King George.
At the same time he also often demonstrates the most amazing ability to tell the truth.
Yes – this is exactly part of the problem that these patients and their families face as well.
There is little or no filter. So things get said that are true that everyone else refuses to say. It is all part of our social habits as humans. And the often very negative reaction and consequences are also part of our inborn social habits. But that type of sudden out of nowhere awkward truth-telling can come with lots of its own problems. In medicine with patients it often comes with the unfortunate release of long-held family secrets that are explosive. It causes all kinds of chaos in their family life.
I don’t know much about the biology involved, although I’m learning something about that from watching Robert Sapolsky’s lecture series on the neurobiology of behavior, but I was particularly struck by Trump’s recent show of childlike petulance in eschewing thinking “purely of peace” because he was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He’s like a ten year old, and a mean one at that.
Trump tells Norway PM not bound to ‘think purely of peace’ after Nobel snub Aljazeera
Haha. The letter is insane and really supports what IM Doc has said about Trump.
Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/01/trump-letter-to-norway/685676/
Methinks whatever chances bro had of getting the Nobel — and they were slim — just went up in smoke.
Sorry to ask you an off topic question,
What do you think of the observation made by some that “vaping disease” disappeared right when Covid started?
Thanks for the amazing comment. Comments like this are why some of us who hang around here are “here to learn.”
Great explanation.
Is white matter disease accepted as a disabling disease by our own government agencies? Are there hard-fact tests which would support his being removed from office under the 25th Amendment?
Simple common sense tells us we cannot have a man who daily throws tantrums and confabulates handling the nuclear football, but apparently our useless Congress thinks it’s just fine so far. Perhaps after the first atomic bomb drops in Europe they would wake up?
I would caution against the 25th based on the current line of succession: Vance; then Mike Johnson. You do get old Chuck Grassley after that, but behind such an old man stand Rubio and Hegseth.
Re: lines of succession. There ought to be a betting line on who will occupy the bunker during this year’s State of the Union. My bet would be on ICE Barbie. Neither Putin nor Xi would want to see her as the last one left in charge.
Yes, the fellows on the bench are awful. But I’ll take awful over irrational and unhinged, thanks. And perhaps a nice impeachment or 25th would encourage them to stick with coloring inside the lines of the Constitution lest they be next.
I agree totally. I’m not a doctor (I just play one on the internet) but this never felt like any of the Alzheimer’s or dementia I’ve witnessed in my own family. I’ve learned a lot from your comments and have to believe you’re on the right track.
I also agree we need a maximum age for the presidency but I have zero faith it would ever happen. And I fear with the current climate as it is (highly tribal politicians, yet no real opposition party, oligarchs running the show, etc.) things are going to get a whole lot worse and continue to go lower until, well, I don’t even know. I wish I felt more positive but I see no reason to.
to channel the HL Mencken side of my brain, it’s the retard, tribal electorate who keeps rubber-stamping the septa/octa/non-genarians of both parties
and speaking the tribal electorate, I have been wondering now, for the past 15 years or so, if I am seeing an increase in people in their 60s,70s and 80s who don’t seem to have the “plasticity in cognition” that is required to be a positive participant in a democratic system. As a stylist talking to lots of mature clients about current events and politics I am on a daily basis depressed to hear their take on issues. Once great minds that wrestled with the important topics since the 70s, now they seem trapped in a tribal mentality: us/them, good/bad, right/wrong, black/white.
Thanks IM Doc for your observations, you have added another layer to my wonderings.
I like that we have IM Doc to educate us about this horrible affliction. It’s a simple fact that we have to consider it when evaluating our older politicians. NC is the perfect place for this idea to be debated, because it can be tempered with thoughts about our dystopian politics. While Trump does seem afflicted, we have to remember that he is also afflicted with a bizarre sense of political strategy. He throws a lot against the wall, and he doesn’t always follow only the ideas that stick to the wall. He also contradicts himself over and over again. He keeps his opponents, and even his allies, off balance. We have to consider that these strategies could be due to the affliction Doc mentions, bizarre political ideas, and/or a mixture of both. I think we have to be especially careful with medical theories based on arms length evaluations, especially when we are dealing with an unorthodox politician dealing with his own evolving and mutating goals in the context of a United States that is losing power and influence in a rapidly evolving and devolving world stage.
It is also true that Higher field strength MRI machines detect significantly more white matter lesions than lower field strength scanners. Studies comparing 1.5T to 4T imaging in multiple sclerosis patients found a mean of 88 additional lesions at 4T.
re: Germany secret intelligence
BERLINER ZEITUNG interview with former deputy director of BND
machine-translation
Former Vice President of the BND: “Europe is a digital colony of the USA”
Former diplomat and intelligence officer Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven sees the relationship with the USA at its lowest point – but a security order with Russia is also hardly conceivable.
https://archive.is/5wmB2
I suppose German intelligence must be a tightly held secret, yes
This corresponds – although I haven´t listened to it yet, just ran across it:
Pascal Lottaz talking to Hans-Georg Maaßen of all people – well, we´ll see.
Maaßen is former head of German domestic secret intelligence a guy who say communists aka antifa everyhwere.
Ex-President of German Spy Agency EXPOSES Sanctions Illegality
51 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejnkZp1MjoQ
>>>>Miriam Adelson is asked how she is buying influence over American politicians.
It’s an amazing cultural phenomenon, in so many domains, people (not just elites) no longer have an inner monogue/speed bump that says, “hold up, should I say/do this…”
Ironically, I salute Miriam Adelson for showing decorum (age, position-appropriate attire) and keeping the quiet part quiet, lmao
Yes so tasteful except for that whole making money off gambling thing. But then our Wall Street casino, as it is sometimes described around here, has made gambling respectable as well.
one can have 0% sympathy for someone/some idea but 100% empathy; and respect how they played the game.
just sayin
Due Dissidence has a segment on this. Keaton West with guest host Katie Halper. utube. ~11+ minutes.
AWKWARD: Miriam Adelson REFUSES To Say How She “Influences” Politics – w/ Katie Halper
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvSPa12rct8
adding: also at that same conference Miriam Adelson profusely praised Pam Bondi, referring to her as (if I remember correctly) as ‘one of us.’ So there’s that. Where are the Epstein files ? / ;)
“The shape of time”
‘In the 19th century, the linear idea of time became dominant – with profound implications for how we experience the world’
There was a Star Trek Enterprise episode where they had depicting how time could be viewed and who is to say that they are wrong-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m5HXgP_IwI (4:40 mins)
there was a big story arc in Voyager, too…maybe 2, now tha i think about it.
and the show Fringe dealt with it a lot, what with the Observers, and all.
i love that there are still such useful correctives to our arrogance.
(consciousness and the nature of gravity are among them)
As an old geology professor used to say…Time flies like an arrow….
Fruit Flies like a banana :)
“Trump administration demands Britain adopt US standards in trade talks”
This must be driving Starmer nuts. He has been trying to force the UK back into the EU which strikes me as a spectacularly bad idea. But now here is Trump demanding that the UK adopt US standards – such as they are – and I guess that he wants to pillage the place and adopting US standards helps.
Yeah, why do we have to deal with British thermal units? And what the hell is a pound foot?
Or, dog forbid, a “slug”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slug_(unit)
I don’t even know how many of these ‘ideas’ are T’s or are coming from the people around him. The Dem estab had the autopen. T could be the T cabinet’s version of the autopen. He signs those presdential orders with a flourish. / ;)
Waiting in the wings is JD Vance. Quick synopsis;
J.D. Vance is a politician who has received significant financial and ideological support from Peter Thiel, a prominent venture capitalist and co-founder of PayPal. Thiel’s backing has been crucial in Vance’s political rise, particularly during his Senate campaign and subsequent vice-presidential candidacy.
The Disclosure of Aliens Could Cause a Bitcoin Rush, Former Bank of England Analyst Says Gizmodo
********
Yeah, the biggest issue with the disclosure of aliens is how it would affect the markets.
Part of me can’t believe I read this, but then I remember where I live.
Trump’s Board For Peace sounds like a mix of SPECTRE and a business dweeb’s wet dream. A bold push for the King of The World status the Donster wrongly believes will quiet his screaming inner feelings of inadequacy.
Per NYT via archive
…while the board was conceived as part of Mr. Trump’s plan to oversee Gaza, there is no mention of Gaza in the charter. That omission added to speculation that the group may have a broader mandate to cover other conflicts and could even be aimed at creating a U.S.-dominated alternative to the United Nations Security Council….
…The board’s mission, according to the charter, is to seek “to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict” and “to undertake peace-building functions in accordance with international law.”
The preamble emphasizes the need for what it calls “a more nimble and effective international peace-building body” and laments that “too many approaches to peace-building foster perpetual dependency and institutionalize crisis rather than leading people beyond it.”…
Per [somewhere I currently cannot find]
Trump would be President-For-Life of the Board
I’m going to say out loud (what many are already thinking):
It should be called “The Board for Pieces of Gaza”.
More properly named the Board For Piece Of The Action. / ;)
Stavro Blofeld, head of SPECTRE.
“Ship’s Log… Incredible as it seems, Dr. McCoy and I are once again prisoners of the chief criminal boss of a society patterned after old Earth gangsters.”
re: China
A German take on China´s “dark factories”.
(Who introduced this idiotic term? Dark factories, shadow fleet, axis of evil, rules-based order, free speech initiative, fact-checker, democracy enhancement – all the same levelling of language and critical thinking. The worst part: It´s so primitive.)
use google-translate
Dark Factories: One car every 60 seconds
https://www.telepolis.de/article/Dunkle-Fabriken-Ein-Auto-alle-60-Sekunden-11145088.html
When BMW and AUDI were boasting with their automated assembly lines and robotics of the 1990s it was all shiny and a bright new future… argh!
Ignorance is Strength and all that. NewSpeak euphemisms are deeply embedded in our language via MiniTrue mass media and the ruling regime. “Sanctions” instead of (illegal) siege warfare, The “whoever Administration” instead of US regime, The “Iranian regime”, instead of Iranian government. It’s always “regime” for the Other, and administration or government for the genocidal mass murderers.
“Hawks” instead of warmongers, or weakling cowards who want others to die, while they profit. I always have a chuckle that the “hawks” are almost always, older, weak, physically inadequate people who could not fight their way out of a paper bag. Or for the male “hawks”, perhaps a need to compensate for lack of physical endowment and potency, but I’m no psychologist.
It’s all quite childish and Manichean, but even critics sometimes find themselves using ubiquitous NewSpeak terms. Language, discourse, and terminology are important, yet many overlook it.
Also deep-seated ethnocentric bias and Orientalist implicit assumptions are built in: Western Civilisation Inc., “liberal democracy” “free markets” are the penultimate expressions of human culture and virtue, while the “dark”, “shadowy” forces of the sinister, autocratic East are always at work to destroy the virtuous West. The barbaric Asiatic Hordes (Chinese, Russians etc.) always threaten to overwhelm the virtuous, democratic, law-abiding west
We could go on and on…
I see an article like the one you linked to and then think about this post today:
Democracy’s Edge: Elite Overproduction – Simon Pearce
Why mass produce cars every 60 seconds?
How many cars and for how many people and where?
Details like that cross my mind.
re: Mearsheimer imperialism
“It’s Not Great Power Politics. It’s Old-Style Imperialism”
Below is an interview I recently did with the South China Morning Post, which is based in Hong Kong, and is one of the most important newspapers in East Asia. Josephine Ma conducted the “Open Questions” interview for the SCMP. We discussed a wide variety of geopolitical issues, paying much attention to what the Trump administration is attempting to do in Venezuela and Iran.
The first item below is the internet version of the interview, for which I have put a link and a PDF. It is followed by a somewhat shorter version of the interview, which appeared in the print version of the SCMP.
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/its-not-great-power-politics-its
From How IVF has led to a record number of single moms in their 40s
At what point are you performing a disservice to your children by having them when you’re older? Parents only live so long.
I dunno, Apps are littered with tons of men rejected endlessly by women, some of which likely would be perfectly suitable partners.
Parenting is hard, who knew?
And what’s it do to boys growing up without fathers?
I dunno, or it is really selfish to have children if you’re intentionally flying solo?
Maybe that selfishness reflects on these women having failed to find partners in the first place?
Counter-argument: I have a wonderful friend (tough life, violent death and alcoholism in her family; double starred First from Cambridge and glittering career since) who chose to have catalogue baby while living in the USA. She’s done a great job of motherhood, despite some roles with a punishing travel schedule, and she has a stand-up kid.
The thing is, she had been in a long-term relationship for years and the guy would not commit but finally agreed to marry then jilted her the week before the wedding. She had one shot at motherhood and took it.
Unless you subscribe to degrowth theories, we need the next generation and she has contributed despite the selfishness of her erstwhile fiancé….
True. There are definitely good parents and role models out there. There are few black and white choices in life.
re: Minneapolis, Minnesota, and ICE.
From NBC’s Meet the Press. utube, ~6+ minutes.
Minneapolis Mayor Frey calls DOJ investigation into him ‘deeply concerning’: Full interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OopLRN_sWM
As Trump reshapes global order, World Economic Forum starts in Davos today – Firstpost
Keeping the attention and ire away from themselves as much as possible.
Why Silicon Valley is really talking about fleeing California (it’s not the 5%) – TechCrunch
But they want to leave behind “AI” images of people and “AI” content.
Not fleeing thoroughly enough. They are still wanting to be the money grubbing middle-men in everything.
Google’s AI Insists That Next Year Is Not 2027 – Futurism
Creating as much confusion as possible is from the conman/thief playbook.
RE: Bessent on Greenland: “…we’re the hottest country in the world…”
All I could think of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV_hDyfmEw4
US, so hot right now.
Democracy’s Edge: Elite Overproduction – Simon Pearce
Well, then…the “abundance” promoting elites haven’t told the full story of how they expect to achieve “abundance”.
Dr. AI is here to kill you, don’t worry
Stop Worrying, and Let A.I. Help Save Your Life (NY Times oped)
This is the moron that smashed his face on a trashcan after having COVID, definitely listen to this guy. What an amusing timeline, that this guy still walks the streets and it’s my dad that’s gone.
IM Doc has written at length about how this just isn’t true in his experience
The stuff is apparently a horror of errors.
This guy failed patients and Americans, by minimizing COVID. But we should trust his diagnosis of the health care system’s failures?
An inability to discern what the issues really are with the health care “system” in America, but whatever they are, Wachter thinks AI is the solution that improves outcomes.
I can only hope there is a hell that so many people so justly deserve to populate.
It strikes me that with things winding down in Ukraine there’s an opportunity for ICE solve its recruiting problem.
Bring over a few thousand AZOV types, they already have the right attitude and most of the desired skills and they won’t need much english beyond “Your Papers” and “Get out of the car, bitch”.
Offer them expedited Citizenship as part of the deal and the recruiting problem is solved!
Genius. Don’t forget too the recruiters that nab people off the streets, bash them up, throw them into a van and take them to be processed into the army. That shows that they have the right attitude as ICE officers.
Where is the world headed? Nuclear war, WW3 or just plain old Global Capitalist resource capture?- Vanessa Beeley and Fiorella Isabel
Pleasant surprise around the 7 min mark.
I’m not the only one who has used the pinata analogy.
It’s especially apt because people are blindfolded before they start whacking.
re: Is Israel The Bankrupt Colony? Frame The Globe News
This is a very good piece and I encourage everyone to read it. If the thesis and outcome is correct it provides a path from here to how a Palestinian state comes about (something the former IDF officers I speak to have been saying from the beginning) and how Israel will be abandoned by the US.
Very good! So, if Trump just signed the finished deal with the Saudis, he is onboard with this. That would mean developing Gaza real estate is just him, Kushner and Witkof muscling out the Israelis for their own little personal empire. The Board of Piece is maybe just a vehicle to cut up and sell off the rest of Israel?
I lean to the view that Israel was never of any strategic use to anybody, and the only reason the U.S. has supported it is that for years (because of Zionism, Holocaust guilt, End Times beliefs, etc) there were enough Israel-no-matter-what voters to swing a Presidential election. As other commenters here have pointed out, that may be changing.
that is very good, thanks.
much to ponder.
In 2000 putin seemed to want to be part of the west. Western refusal and animosity succeeded in driving Russia/China together in spite of their border and, perhaps, Russia’s fear that China would overrun them.
The Greenland threat might drive eu to its natural partner, Russia, in spite of eu leaders being us doormats; public dislike of us, and need for cheap energy, might demand it. And hard to see nato surviving a us takeover of Greenland. Granted, Germany’s fast removal of its paltry 15 troops is not encouraging.
I thought Valentino is already dead.
Shit…
This is a good and deeply-thought-through analysis.
1958 award winning documentary on glass making in the Netherlands. utube, ~10+ minutes.
Glass/Glas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3QEpQ9ozVU
That was brilliant!
(I really hoped all the handblown pieces would come together in a big reveal at the end…)
Trump orders active duty troops to prepare for Minnesota deployment – Politico
Targeting MN for investigations and such is directly related to feeding read meat to a base that wants more revenge for the summer of protests that happened in 2020. Revenge for a short moment of time with some cosmetic attempts at system change. Even that was too much for these panicked authoritarians. It all ramped up after Minneapolis 2020….they did NOT forget.
Weird the the DOJ is targeting MN for investigation at the same time they seem to have lost the investigation into the killing of Rene Good. odd.
meanwhile from Minneapolis, Due Dissidence. utube, ~29+ minutes.
Pentagon Prepares 1500 TROOPS For Possible MINNESOTA DEPLOYMENT – w/ Kyle Anzalone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ak60xSZbA3A
This theory:
As much as or more so than immigrants, it’s about GIGO algorithmic profiling of real and perceived dissidents.
No more, no more Greenland for you, brave boys,
No more, no more Greenland for you.
https://genius.com/Pete-seeger-the-greenland-fisheries-lyrics
Merz Always Chickens Out.
Several people commented that “Is Israel The Bankrupt Colony?” Frame The Globe News – is a fascinating thesis, it could be the subject of quite a conversation. Thanks for putting in Links Conor!
I’ll add a quick thought: Putin is savvy enough to know that ending Ukraine (by winning, or armistice) would remove the Proxy from the Proxy War, then Europe might attack Russia directly.
Israel, on the other hand, is doing what they always wanted to do, but were too smart to do … now Little Benji Mileikowsky has talked the US’s Israel influenced politicians into going through with “winning” Gaza, and, it is maybe not going well for Israel.
In chess, the THREAT of a move is more damaging than actually making the move. A good player uses the threat to create some other advantage; liquidating the threat by making the move immediately actually results in a weaker position, since the other person doesn’t need to calculate the threat, they are free to embark on their next adventure, which is usually offensive. So the article describes Gulf countries shifting from passively reacting to the threat of Palestine being destroyed, to actively building a new reality since Palestine is … Palestinian people are … effectively … ah …
Yes, thank you for the link, Conner. I slowly made my way thru this article. Change is afoot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1dIC287Zz0
worth an hour
Didn’t Taylor Lorenz push garbage at the Washington Post? Or am I thinking of another “journalist?”
Thanks for posting about that video. Will watch it later.
Quid pro quo you should watch Midwestern Marx’s “Escaping the Cave” talk with Dr Carlos Garrido and Chris Helali who are also members of the American Communist Party. It’s on YouTube. Here I’ll get the link 🔗
https://youtu.be/CcRrr0bdPFE?si=ywQOmh-juPOOh3YB
re: debate over Brzezinski
NEW LEFT REVIEW
1) Debating Brzezinski
by Edward Luce
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/debating-brzezinski
2) Means and Ends
by Grey Anderson
https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/means-and-ends