Salt: Not Just a Rock We Eat — Part I Enlightened Omnivore
Climate/Environment
World’s sinking river deltas put over 236mn people at risk Intellinews
NASA reports record heat but omits reference to climate change France24
Air pollution denial is now EPA policy HEATED
Coal power generation falls in China and India for first time since 1970s The Guardian
Pandemics
Dementia timebomb warning as scientists find Alzheimer’s proteins in long Covid patients’ blood Daily Mail. Full study.
Ten mechanisms by which Covid infection could increase dementia risk:
— tern (@1goodtern) January 14, 2026
The Koreas
Special counsel demands death penalty for Yoon over martial law declaration; ruling set for Feb. 19 Yonhap
China?
Beijing tells Chinese firms to stop using US and Israeli cybersecurity software Reuters
Taiwan, US set to coproduce 155mm shells Taipei Times
Trump Declared a Space Race With China. The US Is Losing Wired
U.S. Government initiated 4.5-year lawfare program against Chinese nickel mining through Indonesian labor unions All-Source Intelligence
Syraqistan
Witkoff announces launch of ‘phase two’ of Trump’s Gaza plan New Arab
🔴 Several of the US and Israeli officials now shaping Gaza’s postwar governance were previously central to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the Financial Times reports. The failed aid scheme facilitated the daily killings of starving Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, and… https://t.co/tYFFikmreS pic.twitter.com/R6tpo2GNXp
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) January 14, 2026
Deconstructing Trump’s Gaza ‘Peace’ Plan (w/ Norman Finkelstein) The Chris Hedges Report
***
Trump says he’s been assured Tehran has stopped killing protesters as Iran reopens its airspace – live The Guardian
US Ramping Up to Attack Iran… But Larry Johnson
Iran warns of retaliation if Trump strikes, US withdraws some personnel from bases Reuters.
🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇱➖🛢 Oil prices fall by 5% after Trump’s statements about Iran “stopping” the killings of rioters, suggesting that whatever strikes directed at Iran may be postponed for the time being.
However, due to the Trump Administration’s close ties with betting sites like… pic.twitter.com/GK6ukfMh3X
— dana (@dana916) January 14, 2026
Exclusive: Armed Kurdish groups sought to cross into Iran from Iraq, sources say Reuters
Former Head of Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate: There Is A ‘Very Significant Influence Operation By The US’ In Iran. The Dissident
We reported tonight on Channel 14: foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed.
Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.
— תמיר מורג Tamir Morag (@Tamir114) January 13, 2026
Iran protest-riots can only achieve US-Israeli intervention, ‘shadow CIA’ concludes The Grayzone
This should be a monumental scandal.
At the exact same time that Netanyahu flew to DC to convince Trump to launch another attack on Iran…. Israeli officials were in Russia giving secret guarantees that they wouldn’t attack Iran.
THEN Israel activated its armed Mossad agents… https://t.co/H8Utwpp62h pic.twitter.com/6qoG8FiF94
— Mel (@Villgecrazylady) January 14, 2026
Maidan massacre in Ukraine déjà vu in NYT, Guardian & other reports from Iran with no evidence needed & no questions asked:
“Witnesses spoke of seeing snipers positioned on rooftops in downtown Tehran and firing into crowds; of peaceful protests turning abruptly into scenes of… pic.twitter.com/xDXusqLxq0
— Ivan Katchanovski (@I_Katchanovski) January 14, 2026
***
Qatar and UAE to join US-led effort to bolster technology supply chain Express Tribune
Africa
‘Last straw’: Somalia cuts UAE ties after Yemen separatist’s illegal entry Al Jazeera
Is China doing “colonialism” in Africa? Jason Hickel
European Disunion
European nations to send troops to Greenland as US annexation threats escalate CNN
Now Is Europe’s Opportunity to Reach Out to Russia The Mercenary Diplomat. It’s been the opportunity for decades.
Ukraine able to buy weapons from non-European suppliers with €90bn EU loan The Guardian
Fantasy “Loan” for Ukraine Gets Adjusted Again as EU Faces Priorities Reality Check Simplicius
EXCLUSIVE: EU to become ‘military powerhouse,’ von der Leyen told MEPs Euractiv
Europe shifted right — it’s time centrists do too, says Manfred Weber Politico
Former Corsican separatist leader Orsoni assassinated at mother’s funeral France24
Old Blighty
Peter Thiel’s New Model Army How to Survive the Broligarchy
Government drops plans for mandatory digital ID to work in UK BBC
New Not-So-Cold War
‘The strangler’, pt I Events in Ukraine
Ukraine’s tech prodigy becomes new minister of defense Politico
Why’d The US Signal Support For NATO Troops In Ukraine? Andrew Korybko
If Europe starts attacking Russian cargo ships, all bets are off Responsible Statecraft
South of the Border
US gets first $500 million Venezuelan oil deal, holding some proceeds in Qatar Semafor. Quite the arrangement.
Trump officials eye private security contractors to safeguard oil assets in Venezuela CNN
Chinese Supertankers Turn Back as US Moves Ahead to Extort Venezuelan Crude Venezuelanalysis
Russian State Oil Company Confirms Continued Operations and Energy Projects in Venezuela Orinoco Tribune
Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome CNN. Gotta attack; can’t have Cuba with these WMDs!
Trump 2.0
Dingbat Imperialism, the Lowest Stage of Capitalism Unpopular Front
Trump Beats Back GOP Rebellion on War Powers as Two Pivotal Senators Flip NOTUS
Trump flips off worker who called him ‘pedophile protector’ RT
The Trump administration can’t stop winking at white nationalists Vox
Police State Watch
Exclusive: Secret ICE Programs Revealed Ken Klippenstein. Important.
Second person in a week shot by federal immigration agent in Minneapolis Minnesota Reformer
Gov. Tim Walz encourages Minnesotans to film ICE agents for future prosecutions Minnesota Reformer
House Homeland Democrats launch investigation into Noem with eyes on impeachment The Hill
MAHA
A new entry in the dietary guidelines: advice on maintaining healthy testosterone levels STAT
Testosterone: The Great Male Optimization Myth Psychology Today
Democrats en déshabillé
Do the Democrats Have the Guts to Outflank Trump on Defense Industry Looting? Wall Street’s War on Workers
Why Elizabeth Warren Declared War on Abundance Billionaires Liberty and Power
Bodyguards for a Broken System America’s Undoing
Our Famously Free Press
De-Banked Scott Ritter. Ritter’s accounts zeroed out without explanation.
F.B.I. Searches Home of Washington Post Journalist in a Leak Investigation New York Times
Boeing
Faulty Engine Mount Discovered In UPS MD-11 Crash Was Flagged By Boeing 15 Years Ago Simple Flying
Immigration
US to pause immigrant visa processing for 75 countries including Egypt, Iraq and Yemen The National
AI
How AI Destroys Institutions UC Law Journal
The Bezzle
Data Centers Are Pushing Arizona’s Grid to a Breaking Point Distilled
Oracle sued by bondholders over losses tied to AI buildout Reuters
Cerebras scores OpenAI deal worth over $10 billion ahead of AI chipmaker’s IPO CNBC
Class Warfare
Regulators say DoorDash and Uber Eats chiseled NYC delivery workers out of $550M in tips Gothamist
On the Cumulative Power of Human Ingenuity The Sense of an Ending
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
In the category news you can use…
https://www.thefirebreak.org/p/the-firebreak-food-pyramid?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1817835&post_id=184529520&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=9u80f&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
eat real food, mostly plants, not too much. no sugar, no soda, to the extent reasonably possible. it ain’t easy, lmao.
ps, the median Med. diet means 2 tablespoons of olive oil per day (which is a lot by USAian standards)
Plus copious amounts of fries, pork chops, sausages and pastries. Olive oil intake is more like liters per week. Plenty of coffee, alcohol and cigarettes too. Bon apètit!
More news you can use…
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
https://www.dcdave.com/article3/991228.html
New, or maybe not so new, investment idea: have AI, or even a person, score news articles using that handy grid. Extra points for hits in multiple categories.
Or did Google already stake that out when developing and refining their search engine?
If the latter, could be catch-and-kill tool to bury items, or handy training software to facilitate writer development, or both. ;)
EXCELLENT IDEA, SIR
#17… an army of bots will do the job well
“US Ramping Up to Attack Iran… But”
I take it that Iran’s threat to close the Strait of Hormuz is what made Trump hesitate. The Pentagon would have had to tell him that they cannot stop the Iranians doing this. And that they couldn’t even stop the Yemen people semi-closing theirs. Bessant would have had to tell Trump that if this happened, that it would end up in gas prices in the US skyrocketing which people would – rightly – blame Trump for. No quick victories to claim here but perhaps weeks of strikes on Israel and US bases such as in Bahrain. Sending aircraft over Iran might be risky too as it would depend on what equipment the Russians and the Chinese have brought in. So maybe, just maybe trump is doing a TACO.
Trump is being cute!
I take his mild manner from last night as lulling the Iranians, as he did in June 2025.
The USS Teddy Roosevelt is not in the Red Sea; the Houthi would be shooting! The USS FDR destroyer is somewhere near Oman.
However, moving USS Abe Lincoln CVN 72 west from Philippines Sea last night does not sound like Trump standing down.
Watch what US does.
The lulling days are probably over. Instead it sounds like Trump and his Israeli handlers (see the Grayzone link above) thought their new Maidan would put the Iranian government on the brink of collapse or at least that was what they were telling Don. For Netanyahu the main thing is doubtless less about overthrowing Iran than getting the US into a war with it. It was always his goal.
Therefore the only “win” here would be a change of Iran government and if that isn’t on the table all the preparations were for naught. And Trump of course doesn’t mind lying about non intervention as long as he can get a quick win to finesse the issue. The media have the attention span of a gnat–not unlike our president.
Yes, I believe that Iran’s containment of the riots, thanks to Russian/Chinese help of scrambling Starlink, was probably the main factor in calling off an attack along with Iran clearing its firing corridors showing seriousness.
But all that means is that the strike is postponed, not cancelled. Netanyahu and his vassals are just looking for the element of surprise again.
That’s true about Trump. The past few months has shown him having a predilection for treachery.
O tempores O Mores!
Oh the profits! Whale watching on the sea of oil futures likely to yield results.
Buy the dip, BTFDeeeeee-Ha!
The problem with that is it only works once. USrael shot its wad back in June when they used the IAEA nukular inspectors as spies. Nobody will fall for that trick a second time.
And, according to X acct Flightradar24 – 6 USAF KC- 135 re-fueling tankers have departed Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar. (Sorry. No link. I’m not on X).
Correct link for How AI Destroys Institutions – UC Law Journal.
Updated. Thanks!
Antidote du jour-
‘horse
@horseimage
perhaps he would’ve enjoyed the beautiful scenery if he had not been blindfolded’
And here I was thinking that it was airborne cavalry. A comment says that they use blindfolds for horses in situations like this as ‘They started using those actually after a horse had a heart attack mid-air due to stress.’
I was also startled by the caption. Even in the days of wooden ships they blindfolded horses before hoisting them up in the air.
not an anti-dote imho!
pls tell me this is a rescue —
if not, what is going there?
“after a horse had a heart attack mid-air due to stress”
Yeah, just looking at that picture is painful. The level of cruelty on display is off the charts.
There is no way that horse is not on some powerful drugs.
Believe it is a rescue, yes. Used to extricate horses from spots they can’t get out of. Don’t fly horses around for cruel fun like that as far as I know.
I feel like that horse.
https://open.substack.com/pub/emmanueltodd/p/dialogue-between-kaho-miyake-and?r=blt6&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
Brilliant discussion between Emmanuel Todd and Kaho Miyake, about the relations between men and women in different cultures, and the different personalities they each adopt. I’ve thought that Donald Trump is the most purely American president we’ve ever had – a grifter president of a grifter nation (I’m American, btw). He’s also the weakest man we’ve ever had in the White House, a bully and coward, a man terrified of life. This discussion sheds light on who Trump is and how he got that way
re: Germany plastic surgery scandal
BERLINER ZEITUNG
machine-translation
Beautifully injected – and severely damaged: Berlin beauty clinic at the center of a scandal
Gel implants for breast or buttock augmentation have led to serious damage. Authorities did not intervene; an investigation is underway against a Berlin doctor
https://archive.is/9v5gu
re: Jacques Baud
Swiss government alive, protest in Brussels after 26 days.
Swiss WELTWOCHE
use google-translate
Jacques Baud case: Swiss mission chief Rita Adam protests in Brussels
https://weltwoche.ch/daily/fall-jacques-baud-schweizer-missionschefin-rita-adam-protestiert-in-bruessel/
or via Larry Johnson´s site:
The Jacques Baud Case – Bern Lodges a Protest with the EU!
by Peter Haenseler
11 January 2026
https://sonar21.com/the-jacques-baud-case-bern-lodges-a-protest-with-the-eu/
“Trump Declared a Space Race With China. The US Is Losing”
Back in the 60s when the US planned to go to the Moon, it was a serious country. An army of engineers, scientists and technicians worked together as an army to work out the solutions on how to make it all possible and the political leadership oversaw it all. But now? You have all sorts of Mickey Mouse stuff going on like Senator Ted Cruz demanding that a billionaire put in charge of NASA promise that the US will get to the Moon first. There are mass firings of NASA personnel instead of mass hirings. And is any of the equipment full tested and ready to go? But China is a serious country run by engineers who are prepared to do the hard work to get to the Moon. And sooner or later people will have to prepare themselves for the sight of Chinese Teikonauts on the surface of the Moon. Just one of those things.
Watching billionaires treat space flight like their private plaything has always been particularly irksome to me. I’m old enough to remember when the space program was a source of national pride. Watching those memories be defiled by shabby parasites is galling.
A small tangent: reminds me of the handy category used by the IT support staff at a former workplace when they couldn’t explain a particular glitch – it was a JOOTT (Just One Of Those Things).
If you dig into the details, the “big beautiful bill” allocated enough funding to NASA to get the Artemis program to the Moon. I spent a bit of time looking through what’s going on there today, and it looks like there will be a launch on 6 Feb, which will be the first to take humans around the Moon and back since 1975. All is not lost. But yes, the sheetshow continues.
File under Trump 2.0:
From Politico
Trump threatens to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota after protests
His statement came just hours after a man was shot in the leg by federal law enforcement.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/15/trump-insurrection-act-minnesota-00730664
This is beta testing for October.
Will be interested in the Democrat (non)response.
It appears they intend to fund the Insurrection Act for October with some behavioral tips.
File under police state watch: from Breaking Points
Stephen Miller Says ‘IMMUNITY’ For ICE, Floats ARRESTING Dem Officials
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJhMaTS81Xw
De-banked — Scott Ritter
I’m amazed that Ritter stayed with the same bank for 26 years, given his unconventional (even controversial) public opinions. He was lucky to have avoided this episode for such a long time.
Yours truly has had several bank accounts abruptly terminated over the last 30 years. Always with no explanation (although it’s likely that my Russia links were usually the reason). USA, UK, Italy, Switzerland…..at least the Swissies were courteous enough to give me 90 days notice. My Italian bank manager (whom I had known for several years) was deeply apologetic and embarrassed (I simply went to another bank down the street, and they were delighted to take my money). The Brits were polite but firm (granting me 30 days notice ‘…..to establish alternative banking arrangements. We trust you understand our stance in this matter.’). The Yankees were the worst: zero warning (a la Ritter), confirmed two weeks later on by a terse snail mail letter (with no return address and a childlike signature).
Lesson 1: always maintain at least two bank accounts (ideally in different jurisdictions), even if you are an honest blameless law-abiding taxpayer with no public profile and no international links. In November 2024 there was an internet glitch in Italy that rendered my local bank cards unusable for several days, so it was nice to be able to whip out my other bank card (non-Italian) and carry on normally.
Lesson 2: staying on good terms with your local bank staff is all very nice and might help you sleep better, but ultimately it’s not enough (as Ritter learned the hard way); if the corporate HQ’s computer algorithim decides that you’re a potential baddie (or if it decides that the compliance costs of keeping you as a client exceed the bank fees that you’re generating), then they can de-bank you in a heartbeat. Read the contract you signed.
Lesson 3: once you give your money to a bank, it becomes the bank’s property and (within very broad parameters) they can do what they like with it.
I’m a slow learner, but eventually I do catch on: my wife and I keep as little money as possible in the banking system. Tangible assets are our friends, and we can sell them as needed to replenish the bank accounts.
‘Bank’ is a four-letter word.
How are your friends tangible assets? How do you maintain a rainy day fund or security?
There is a saying in the Prepper Community concerning this.
“We stack the three precious metals: gold, silver, lead.”
“Rainy Day” funds are often exactly that, “funds” in physical form; cash, coin, long term food supplies, etc. etc.
In America under the Neoliberal Dispensation, all is transactional. “Friends” are “assets” or “liabilities.”
The basic thing to remember is that all electronically mediated ‘commerce’ is reliant upon a steady supply of electricity. As the ‘interest’ in the energy hogging nature of recent AI data centres shows, that reliability is not a given.
Stay safe. Stack deep.
I’m certainly no prepper (though life in rural Tuscany has forced me to become a reluctant chainsaw nerd). I own some yellow metal (small amounts at home in a coffee tin, larger amounts in an outside-the-banking-system storage warehouse in another country). Ben Bernanke’s helicopter speech back in 2002 was my Damascene conversion; his speech, combined with my experiences of being de-banked, made me deeply skeptical towards bankers in general. And if we ever get a repeat of 1859’s Carrington Event, physical cash and some silver/gold coins might come in handy until the grid is repaired.
It’s a shame that this happened to Ritter, but I’m pleased that he went public with it. People need to be aware of how powerful banks have become in our modern world; they can turn your life upside down without warning, even if you have broken no laws, and there is little you can do to fight back. But you can take steps to reduce your exposure to this kind of nonsense.
I’m dubious about the gold coins. Will your local 7-11 accept them? Will any regular merchant, even in a Carrington Event?
Probably not. And it would be silly to use a gold Krugerrand (at $4500/oz) for buying a bag of groceries. (I suppose silver coins might be a better choice in this regard, but I doubt most shopkeepers would be keen on accepting them either). In any case, my interest in gold stems from my visceral distrust of the banking system, not from any belief that doomsday will soon be upon us.
Still, your question is an interesting one. Do you have a Plan B in case the banking system breaks down for a month? Spain’s electricity grid crashed for a mere one day last April, causing chaos; and this was an innocent accident, not a deliberate attack. We’ve become so accustomed to ATMs and online payments and fully stocked supermarkets and gas stations that we’ve forgotten how fragile these systems are. I keep some cash and gold coins on hand at all times, just in case. In the event of a banking system shutdown (an electricity blackout, an EMP attack, a Carrington Event repeat, whatever) or a government-mandated bank holiday (which even the USA had in 1933), I would expect that civilization will carry on and find workarounds. Middlemen like jewelers and coin dealers or even pawn shops (all of whom are adept at examining things for authenticity and market value) can take objects (like coins) and give hard cash in return; if things drag on for weeks, they might start issuing pieces of paper which in their turn can be exchanged locally as means of payment, assuming local merchants trusted the issuing jeweler/dealer/pawn shop. If you cannot obtain cash because the banks are all closed, and you cannot buy online because the internet is down, then what are you going to do? Barter?
If we do go full Mad Max, then guns and ammo (and a fresh water supply) will be much more useful than gold coins. But I doubt things will reach that point.
Sorry, tangible assets are not anywhere as useful in practice in breakdown situations as promoters suggest, as opposed to at times when markets are orderly. There are many accounts from Argentina during its worst periods of individuals using gold for transactions. Most middlemen could not verify the gold content. Wedding rings seemed to be the best accepted but sellers clearly were getting less than the value of the gold content.
Similarly, in Vietnam during the war, many women held wealth in the form of gold beads. They got far less than metal value when trying to use them to buy food or buy off rapists.
Thank you YS …
Even with tech available to ascertain a metal or gems worth, as you say, it all goes sideways in an disorderly market e.g. one without functional Gov oversight and double for social norms. As you gently note – sex was way more functional in transactions that any metal or gem. Humanity really is a mixed bag and some just don’t seem to understand that a lot of freaks of all sort are just waiting to scratch their itch …
I am surprised so few people get this. Do people really buy gold coins in order to be able to buy a can of beans for them when tSHtF? And more people are getting into crypto thinking it will save them if the dollar breaks down when it has the same problem and worse.
Re: Tangible Assets? Jars of gold, silver and banknotes buried in the flower garden? ;-)
You would be surprised what is buried in the flower garden.
The film “Rear Window” comes to mind.
ha!
Your neighbors wife?
ZING
I’m hoping Scott Ritter might read this or our gracious host may pass it on.
A business of which I am an investor and director was debanked last year, for entirely stupid bureaucratic reasons. The lead account holder ironically works for a $bn US fund’s back office and was unable for security reasons during working hours to take telephone calls on her personal mobile – and from no caller ID numbers at that! The bank made no other attempts to communicate and then decided her identity was suspect. They promptly closed the account and eventually sent us a letter say the money would be considered stolen and not returned (low six figure sum!).
The local branch could do nothing. The call centre was a black hole. There was no address to write to. I wrote to every high up I could and my MP etc but never got a reply.
The bit for Scott Ritter’s benefit is that having read the UK law on SAR’s, I realised their authority to hold the money had expired because no court order had been obtained to extend the freeze. So I filed in the UK what is called a statutory demand, calling in our on-demand loan of money to the bank (the credit balance). If a demand is not met within so many days, the demander can file a winding up petition on the demandee!
My money turned up on the day of the statutory demand’s ripening! And compensation at the 8% court interest rate eventually followed. And I had been able to open an account at the next bank on the high street without trouble in the interim.
Obviously, Scott Ritter is in a trickier position as a persona non grata but I hope there is an analogous US procedure to get his money back….
I now have accounts at several banks and pseudo-banks, both sole and joint and business and personal, because the episode has left me wary of the state’s power to be un-personed. I’m not organised or liquid enough to keep gold or cash under the mattress but I feel one should….
fwiw: Ritter will appear on Garland Nixon´s show in a few hours from now I think. On his talk with Martyanov a few hours ago Nixon said something like “in 10 hours”.
His wife is opening a new bank account and Ritter said he will get his money from his former bank back in 14 days.
Not that the bank behaved well, but Ritter was remiss. His bank did send a letter saying it was closing his account on Jan. 3. He didn’t find the letter until they told him they had notified him and he went looking for it after the accounts were zeroed out.
The sooner more people get debanked, the sooner the world will move to alternatives to capitalism.
Facts
BRING ON THE GUINEA PIGS
I have a vague memory of another instance of de-banking being linked to here on NC. IIRC the issue in that situation was about donations from a website being deposited into a personal account. It looks like Ritter might have done something similar. Maybe it’s safer to keep business (or business look-alike) transactions in a separate account?
I believe Ritter’s greatest sin was telling the world there were no WMDs in Iraq. Uncle Sugar has hated him ever since.
Yep, that’s when I first heard of him. He was a military analyst working in Iraq. He tangled with Biden at some committee hearing back when Biden was running interference for the Delaware Corporation
In the lead up to the Iraqi invasion he was something of a regular on the CBC radio program “As It Happens”, desperately trying to convince people that there were no WMD in Iraq.
He may have had some effect. In any case we stayed home.
Biden as an arrogant POS grilling Ritter –
https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-committee/user-clip-1998-biden-chastises-un-weapons-inspector-ritter/4842887
Ritter makes reference to structuring transactions to avoid the $10k limit, but I believe that will get you flagged as well. I have accounts at various bank and bank-like institutions and if I have to move money between banks I really hate getting treated like a criminal. Realistically $10k is not a huge sum these days. If you want to buy some gold eagles you blow through that pretty quickly.
Yet when my Dad died and I was executor getting his money out of the big banks (Regions/Chase) took months. I cannot recommend using any of those monster banks.
And getting an account for an estate is not easy either. After being turned down at various banks due to “legal dept”, I finally was able to use a credit union.
Should mention I have no banking “apps”; do nothing mobile. Only use browser-based online access at home.
Yes, transactions that look intended to get around the $10K limit get flagged, like withdrawals of very close to that amount or withdrawals on successive days, like $5000 a day more than 1x within a week. I don’t know the details and they may well vary by bank.
“Peter Thiel’s New Model Army”
Peter Thiel is no Oliver Cromwell but a huckster. Unfortunately when you military depends on the infrastructure of another country, then you don’t really have a military. But what really bugs me is that the CEO of Palantir UK is the grandson of British fascist leader Oswald Mosley. I commented not that long ago how lots of leaders of present day Europe have notorious Nazis in their background from WW2 and how it is almost like the Nazis won the war after all. But Oswald Mosley’s grandson? Seriously?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley
They have learned their lesson. Now it is known as the British Union of Oligarchs.
May I suggest a new acronym? BFF = Best Fascist Friend.
Historically England has been remarkably forgiving of aristocratic traitors, or at least of their families. One of them would be executed and have their estate confiscated, then in 10 or 20 years the wife or son would get it back and everybody would be good buddies again. Maybe they figure that any of them could end up in the same situation, so it’s better not to be too hard-core?
I first learned of Mosely pretty recently from watching Peaky Blinders. When I looked him up to learn more, I was rather surprised to find that he was only fairly briefly detained, was released before the war was over, participated in politics after the war, and lived to a ripe old age.
Given all the USian geriatrics currently leading the s*it show on this side of the pond, it’s hard to disagree with the sentiment that only the good die young.
Awkward family history time: my father, as a young man about town in 1930’s London, belonged to Mosley’s dining club and ran in those circles; my half sister (a generation older) made a bee-line for the attic when he died, to dispose of various black shirts and regalia.
Other rackety family friends included Count Potocki, pretender to the Polish throne.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Potocki_de_Montalk
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0031322X.2019.1577007
They would turn up unannounced in darkest Devon from time to time, as would the entire company of the Ballet Rambert, another of my father’s pet projects. My mother says it made for a lively marriage – but she still divorced him! And my half-brother married a communist Pole in reaction.
Not so awkward. There is the story of the man that spent £2,000 uncovering his family history tree – and another £5,000 covering it right up again. :)
Dunno. We did forbid attainder and corruption of the blood in the constitution, so must have been some concern.
Given that even NC antidotes can cause stress now, it must be past time to acknowledge for once and for all that everything everywhere is rapidly getting worse in real time for almost everybody, and I should turn my attention elsewhere while I’m still alive. There are still spheres in my real life where kindness and wisdom and beauty are the currency and that’s where I owe to it myself and my loved ones to focus my energy. I’ll miss this place though. Thanks for everything.
The late great john prine, “spanish pipedream”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLSGLOLsuTo
Nice. Fellow fan here.
🫡
TOUCH DAT GRASS BRO
around this time last year I was diagnosed with a stage 4 brain tumor. Prior to that, I was focused on how ugly the world, and life, was getting, especially with the most vicious genocide being broadcast live and fully supported by all our western societies. After that diagnosis, I decided that I wanted to keep living and switched my focus to my family and things that brought joy to my life, which meant cutting out world news, at least for the following months.
Take a reset. Focus on what is important to you. Find the beauty that still exists in life. Maybe ignorance is not bliss, but knowledge is a heavy burden in a rotten and deteriorating world.
I’m saddened to hear about your diagnosis. I hope any treatment, palliative or curative, is not too miserable.
So true about the need to focus on the beauty still in life. My three granddaughters, whom I get to see at least once a week, certainly qualify. Watching little humans acquire those fundamental skills of walking and talking while their personalities bloom is a wonderful privilege.
It’s time for the world of neoliberalism and Full Spectrum Dominance to depart the stage. I worry about my children and especially grandchildren who will have to survive this change, but at least there’s the possibility of a new world on the other side.
> Exclusive: Secret ICE Programs Revealed Ken Klippenstein. Important.
The picture is of a secret federal political police, or a Geheime Staatspolizei as they say over there.
Re : “The second official described Qatar as a neutral location where money can flow freely with US approval and without risk of seizure.”
More like “without risk of whose pocket it ends up in being identified”
Gone are the days when you could trust the Swiss banking system to do this for you, as even they seem to have developed a more sophisticated ick detectors. Quataris, perhaps not so much.
Last September I chatted with a Swiss banker (of almost 20 years acquaintance) who used to live in Moscow but now resides in one of the Emirates (follow the money, indeed). He said that while lots of RU money is now parked in Dubai, the really dirty money is in nearby Oman (not much KYC/AML compliance going on there, apparently). He did not mention Qatar.
He also said that Swiss and USA banks are gradually re-opening to RU clients. Pecunia non olet.
I am not a commodity trader and my one foray into the precious yielded me roughly zero after 15 years of waiting, but I have to say…
the yellow is 4600, the one that makes a great wind chime is 90, and yet the black is like that old spencers gifts poster of the cat clinging onto a branch captioned “hang in there!” can’t hold 60 and I’m reminded that sanctioned black russian was capped at said 60 while the scroungers expected to be farming (ala bessent) the spread and I just can’t help but lmao.
No, seriously, america is already great!
Hey! Push on that string for me, wouldja?
My sister has a set of sterling silver flatware she’s used 4x in 25 years and asked me about selling it, and i’ve not bought or sold anything in over 20 years, so I hit up a friend for info, and what he told me was a bit shocking in that he can get 85% of melt value for it, but payment would be 2 to 6 weeks out, which is never the way it used to be, although you can get immediate payment for ,999 fine silver.
This is so reminiscent of the Hunt Brother silver bubble late in the game in December of 1979, as they only wanted .999 fine Comex deliverable 1,000 ounce bars, and anything less than pure sold for big discounts, as the refineries were hopelessly backed up.
In 1998, I bought several hundred Silver Eagle 1 oz coins for $4 each, and a dozen Gold 1 oz coins for $360 each when Y2K was supposed to send us all back to the Stone Age. I kinda forgot about them over the years, until I saw a news report about prices spiking. A quick Internet search found a local coin dealer who paid me 95% of the previous days spot price at close. It was a quick transaction for a couple of the gold coins, and 20 of the silver. They were armed to the teeth at that coin shop. There were bullet holes in the sheetrock, no kidding.
Good job. In Hawaii we pay 4.7% tax to buy coins so put it off, but my wife’s insistence finally did work on me. 2021 Type 1 BU Silver Eagles not doing badly these days, but she is more interested in Scott Ritter-type events, not profit.
When I watched a video yesterday of ICE agents going door to door I was struck by several things.
There were a dozen or so agents bunched up and milling around, no discipline at all and particularly no muzzle discipline.
That behavior would have gotten you tossed out of any of the firearms classes I have taken instantly, it’s an invitation to disaster.
Second, I looked at their kit, they are kitted out like Seal Team Six.
High end red dot sights and full auto rated suppressors, body armor and lots of flash bang grenades and spare 30 round magazines.
You’d think they were going after a bunch of those Antifa terrorists embedded in Code Pink…
It’s only a matter of time until we see these thugs open up on a crowd of peaceful protestors, and probably not much time.
re: “That behavior would have gotten you tossed out of any of the firearms classes I have taken instantly, it’s an invitation to disaster.”
Yes. Absolutely.
“We’re powerful and undisciplined, so you’d better yield to us.”
Sayeth those who never watched the old Humphery Bogart / Ingrid Bergman movie “Casablanca.” / ;)
“You’d think they were going after a bunch of those Antifa terrorists embedded in Code Pink…” LOL
but not so unlikely at the pace things are going.
Little ol’ Ladies dressed in Pink (not Red) might be found chained to the Federal building in the not so distant future.
“On the Cumulative Power of Human Ingenuity”
I think there was international cooperation in Science and invention long before Merchantilism had been conceived, and long before Globalism began its reign. Ideas can move across distance in many ways that do not involve international trade. The idea that Globalism was a key ingredient in inventing and building the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine seems strange, blending implicit ideas about comparative advantage with the flows of money, people, ideas, technology, and invention required to the foster assembly of that machine by ASML, a firm located in Veldhoven, a small town in the Netherlands. Why not a small town in Upstate New York or Vermont or Iowa, or California or a small town in any of a number of other countries? And why does just one firm happen to be the sole provider of a piece of capital critically necessary to manufacturing integrated circuits? How did it come about that many industries rely on sole sources or very few sources scattered around the globe for key capital and key components of their products?
What of the author’s claim: “The achievement I have just briefly described could not have been realized by any single country.” I highly doubt that. The U.S. invented, developed, and built the technology to put footprints and some small, now much faded, American flags on the moon. Globalism had nothing to do with that effort unless you would count the importation of Knowledge via bringing in brilliant scientists and engineers from all over the world as Globalism. Or call it Globalism to spend Federal money to build U.S. Education and train a small army of scientists and engineers in the U.S. including many top students imported from all over the world.
The most important lesson this link offers and something I strongly agree with:
“…there is indeed a cumulative power in human ingenuity, but it is impossible to predict in what direction that power will lead and whether it will be a force for good or ill. It’s a delicate process, which cannot be planned but only prodded this way and that by the ever-contending interests of the participating actors. The free flow of ideas is of course a stimulant, as is the free flow of capital and talent (AMSL drew on huge investments by American and other chip firms once its technology began to show promise, while it drew its engineers from many countries and locales where highly specialized technological knowledge happened to be concentrated for adventitious reasons).”
This statement suggests implications for the advantages of cultivating redundancy in efforts by human ingenuity, and for restraint of efforts to ‘plan’ the products of Human Ingenuity.
OTOH, the Manhattan Project relied on the scientific research and work of scientists from a number of European nations, as well as US scientists. The Europeans were mostly exiles who had fled the Nazis. The cross-fertilization of ideas and experience from the likes of Fermi and Teller, to name just two, had to have helped speed the process of developing a bomb.
One might argue and many have that the Manhattan Project was the dark side of human ingenuity. Our fertile brains are capable of destroying as well as saving the species.
And part of that ingenuity is that there are simply more of us and more of us in touch with all that “global” creativity. So in that sense more Americans are a good thing. Trump wants to close the open door because people like him are the dead wood in need of replacement. Entrenched aristocracies rarely make societies better.
Neither the Manhattan Project, nor the Moon Project were based on what I would call Globalism. As I stated in my comment above, both projects used numerous foreign scientists, and engineers. I do believe the Moon Project also educated a number of domestic and foreign students to bolster the ranks of the scientific and engineering workforce supporting the project. Many of the U.S. trained foreign students became naturalized U.S. citizens and remained in the U.S. Both projects were run and funded by the U.S. government.
As far as I know inventing and building the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine was run and largely funded by commercial money working to build the basis for the profits machine that even now lines the pockets of the affiliated captains of industry. I think the ultra efficiency of single source supply lines is a feature of Globalism, along with the endless search for new even less expensive sources. The complexity and location of the source for the extreme ultraviolet lithography machine makes it difficult to locate suitable places to relocate its production along with certain political complications. I suppose the logic of Globalism would have worked to relocate the production somewhere in the far East if Obama had not made his Pivot to the East.
I think of Globalism as opposed by Mercantilism in the interplay between nations. The Globalist single and shallow sourcing of critical goods — especially military or economy critical items is anathema to rational military and national strategy in the great game. Regard China’s monopoly on rare earth metals production.
Not to forget:
No Manhattan Project without Tube Alloys.
No Los Alamos without the Frisch-Peierls-Memorandum.
No Peierls, no Frisch without German theoretical departments in Leipzig, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Heidelberg.
But there was this tiny difference:
Frisch/Peierls estimated a critical mass of, I believe 5-10 pounds, which the Germans and many others never did. Eventually the amount was bigger but still the math proved it was an amount not impossible to enrich. Germans were fumbling with amounts of 200, 500, even 2000 kgs. And never came to a serious formula.
That the Americans being utterly unthankful still kicked the British out of this new source for world domination was a dick move not to be underestimated. Of course you could argue that was the payment for the US bailing them out during WWII.
Neil Armstrong wouldn’t have gotten very far without Wernher von Braun & the head start from reverse engineering the V2 rockets after the war.
To answer your “How did it come about…” questions, ask instead why so many US firms have been bought up, ‘consolidated’ and mostly shut down over the last 40 years. Who is making those decisions, and where does the money end up?
I have an ongoing debate with an old friend about whether the Chinese model of State sponsored regional economic ecosystems for designated Industrial Policy domains will be able to be as creative as the American private VC system.
With western financialization, in my opinion, the Chinese will win hands down. In a free(er) society, like that under the New Deal where financialization was regulated out of existence, private enterprise working with State R&D was a powerful system, but I doubt it’s possible to re-construct that.
I put (er) after free, because over the 50 years or so of my thinking about the constraints of “civilization” I’ve concluded that it is only in the rarest of moments that “civilizations” have approximated anything like freedom for ordinary people, and that in the digital world with it’s universal information chokepoints we’re unlikely to see anything like that again.
You are quite correct about digitization. It allows a degree of control of populations that has never been possible in the past. It has been reckoned that in Communist East Germany, that perhaps one sixth of the population were Stasi informants in one way or another. In the end it made no difference. But if they had access to modern IT…..
RE: Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome
From the CNN (aka Clown News Network) article –
“One key concern now for some officials is that if the technology proves viable it may have proliferated, several of the sources said, meaning that more than one country could now have access to a device that may be capable of causing career-ending injuries to US officials.”
Egads! Boris and Natasha have now developed weaponry that only affects USians. I guess the rest of the world’s diplomats can now breath easier.
The article is a little vague on where the ‘device’ originated, so I look forward to future CNN reporting where we may find that the ‘device’ came from J. Frank Parnell’s trunk, or perhaps was manufactured by ACME for a certain wild canine.
meaning that more than one country could now have access to a device that may be capable of causing career-ending injuries to US officials.”
Hold on, is this device some kind of permanent truth serum?
Beep beep!
One can be skeptical that the US government purchaser got something that actually functions.
If the device produces electromagnetic radiation/ or sound waves and was used against US embassy employees, why did USA sophisticated electronic instrumentation (assuming there was an investigation) not detect its use?
If the new device is made from earthly based technology, perhaps the USA could give a block diagram of its construction and use case.
One wonders if the new device will be found as effective as the fraudulent (but 22000 GBP expensive) GT200 remote explosive and drug detector?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT200
Could be they’ve purchased the illudium Q36 explosive space modulator.
If there are any earth shattering kabooms emanating from the Pentagon, you’ll know why.
Cracks Begin to Appear at the Nation’s Biggest Banks (NY Times)
MAGA On the March!
From the bottom of my bourbon stained tumbler, The era of neoliberalism is over.
Bottoms up.
“Don’t change before the Empire falls,
You’ll laugh so hard, you’ll crack the walls.”
Grace Slick, “Greasy Heart”
Words to live by.
Happy Estimated Tax Payment day to those who are forced to observe it :/
I have to say, it never feels good to pay big bills to the IRS in advance of April 15, but it feels especially noxious this year. I want exactly zero of my hard earned dollars going to fund this government. I get nothing I want from my federal government. I’m fairly convinced my state is corrupt enough that my money is used for ill there too. The whole process just feels like a gang, shaking me down for protection payments. But the payments are to protect me from the gang!
I’ve read enough from Stephanie Kelton to understand the role income taxes play in the US system. I just don’t like it. It really does feel like I’m being penalized for success, in addition to the supporting a bunch of thieves.
That’s enough griping I guess. Maybe we’ll finally see that sweet tariff money roll in…
Grief you can use; I couldn’t do the estimated tax payments for my father’s estate, because IRS Quick Pay verifies with your SSN, address, birthdate. When you die, your SSN hits the death list we heard about at Social Security that Trump was abusing earlier last year.
I couldn’t authenticate to pay.
Using my mother’s SSN did work, at which point I realized it wasn’t a mistake in their address, it was the SSN death file.
Fun times.
Meanwhile I needed to video call verify with ID.me because someone might pay my taxes illegally on my behalf I guess, and we cannot have that.
I hate it here.
re: Iran
Yesterday we mentioned both Jafar Panahi and DemocracyNow and here they are, both:
“This Regime Will Fall”: Director Jafar Panahi on Deadly Iran Protests & Filmmaking Under Censorship
Jan. 15th
30 min.
https://www.democracynow.org/2026/1/15/jafar_panahi
re: Scott Ritter
The latest show with him and Garland Nixon?
I hope so:
WARRIOR UPDATE WITH SCOTT RITTER – EP 109 – DEBANKED! – SCOTT RITTER GETS THE JACQUES BAUD TREATMENT
73 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhiSJXHKXE4&t=5s
As for that now suspended Ford worker who Trump flipped-off for calling him a “pedophile protector,” he was wrong to accuse Trump of covering for Epstein. Author Michael Wolff and House Speaker Mike Johnson have both independently confirmed that Trump was the snitch who got Epstein prosecuted by the feds.
Trump didn’t turn in Epstein because he suddenly developed a conscience about the girls that he and his former pal were abusing. Rather it was because Epstein was threatening to rat him out to the feds for the Maison de l’Amité money laundering and tax evasion scheme that he had snatched out from under Epstein and was working on behalf of out-of-favor Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev. Trump wanted to damage Epstein’s credibility and to destroy him as a rival.
Wolff wrote about this years ago, but nobody was paying attention. That Ford worker should have read Wolff’s book…
Mark Epstein, Jeffrey’s brother, believes it was Trump who ordered his brother’s murder in prison
Mark Epstein claims that he will release the results of an independent autopsy in February that will conclusively prove that his brother did not commit suicide.
Look! Over there! Trump appears to be in full Distraction Theater mode. One wonders why he has chosen this moment to blow-up the country and the world?