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Links 1/22/2026

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Scientists May Finally Know Why You Can’t Remember Being a Baby and The Answer Is Tiny Immune Cells Acting as Memory Janitors ZME Science

Weight-loss pills could fuel airline savings Travel Weekly

Recalled tuna accidentally shipped to stores in 9 states USA Today

The Case for Bathroom Mandates Homo Economicus

Climate/Environment

Biodiversity collapse threatens UK security, intelligence chiefs warn The Guardian

Global warming intensifies extreme day-to-day temperature changes in mid–low latitudes Nature Climate Change

Are early blooming plant species more phenologically responsive? Oikos

Trump administration speeding deep-sea mining permits in international waters The Hill

Gimme More The Baffler

Pandemics

Davos

Cough-inducing strange odour forces evacuation at World Economic Forum in Davos Firstpost

Water

The gold plating of American water Works in Progress

Half the world’s 100 largest cities are in high water stress areas, analysis finds The Guardian

China?

China’s consumption problem is an income distribution problem The East Is Read

China’s Post-GDP Prosperity Warwick Powell

Wu Xinbo Says We Are Witnessing Yet Another Turning Point in China–U.S. Relations Pekingnology

Eyeing China, EU moves to ban ‘high-risk’ foreign suppliers from telecoms networks AFP

Less than 15% of TSMC advanced processes in U.S. by 2029: Expert Focus Taiwan

Syraqistan

Leaked Documents: “Planned Community” in Rafah Would Force Palestinians Into Israeli Panopticon Drop Site

Israel Targets And Kills Three More Journalists In Gaza. The Dissident

The architect of Gaza’s destruction joins the ‘Board of Peace’ Al Mayadeen

***

U.S. Forces Launch Mission in Syria to Transfer ISIS Detainees to Iraq U.S. Central Command (press release)

U.S. Military Buildup In The Middle East Grinds On The War Zone

Iran’s top diplomat vows to ‘fire back with everything we have’ if the US attacks TRT World

Israeli bullets found in bodies of children killed in Iran — TASS source TASS

How Regime Change In Iran Is The Final Phase Of The ‘Clean Break’ Strategy. The Dissident

How Syria’s Kurds were erased from the US-led endgame The Cradle

Israel’s imports of Azerbaijani oil via Turkey jump despite Ankara’s trade ban Reuters

O Canada

Military models Canadian response to hypothetical American invasion The Globe and Mail

European Disunion

Revealed: Trump’s Greenland deal The Telegraph

S&P 500, Dow gain after Trump rules out ‘force’ to acquire Greenland Reuters

The Great Greenland War Big Serge

Venezuelan Oil Heads Back to Europe as Trump Administration Reopens Exports Bloomberg

European governments turn to short-term debt as borrowing costs rise FT

New Not-So-Cold War

Trump says Putin accepted Board of Peace invite — while Russia mulls paying for permanent seat with frozen assets Kyiv Independent

Putin’s New Hardline? UPDATE Gordon Hahn

Zelensky-Sorosite-EU alliance against U$A Events in Ukraine

For ‘Freedom and Democracy’ Azov Lobby Blog

Zelensky’s former deputy chief of staff charged in $3.3 million embezzlement scheme Kyiv Independent

South of the Border

US escalates regime change efforts in Cuba after Maduro abduction: WSJ Al Mayadeen

Venezuela’s Rodríguez to visit Washington in first presidential trip since Maduro capture Intellinews

L’affaire Epstein

Inside Democrats’ shock revolt on holding Bill Clinton in contempt Axios

Trump 2.0

US science after a year of Trump Nature. Commentary:

Police State Watch

ICE says its officers can forcibly enter homes during immigration operations without judicial warrants: 2025 memo NBC News

Leaked Doc: Homeland Security’s Domestic Terror Obsession Ken Klippenstein

So many horror stories:

The DHS Funding Bill is Worse Than You Think Migrant Insider

MAP: Minneapolis General Strike Movement Spreads to 80 Cities on Friday Payday Report

ICE Officially Launches Operation ‘Catch of the Day’ as Maine Braces for Authoritarian Surge Common Dreams

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

FBI’S WASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATION SHOWS HOW YOUR PRINTER CAN SNITCH ON YOU The Intercept

Our Famously Free Press

Judge orders stop to FBI search of devices seized from Washington Post reporter Ars Technica

Trump vs. The Fed

Supreme Court seems inclined to keep Lisa Cook on Fed board despite Trump attempt to fire her AP

The Fed’s Independence is at Stake and it May Be Its Own Fault! Racket News

Imperial Collapse Watch

The Great Entertainment Kyla Scanlon

The divorce between the U.S. and WHO is final this week. Or is it? NPR

Sports Desk

Are ‘Jeopardy!’ Contestants Really That Bad At Questions About Sports? Defector

Healthcare?

BOOM: Congress Imposes Public Utility Rules on UnitedHealth, CVS, and Cigna BIG by Matt Stoller

Supply Chain

Copper thefts turned these upscale L.A. streets pitch dark. Frustrated residents are fighting back Los Angeles Times

AI

Comic-Con Bans AI Art After Artist Pushback 404 Media

Casino Nation

On Tilt Harper’s Magazine

The Bezzle

New York Stock Exchange building venue for 24/7 tokenized stock and ETF exchange — will leverage blockchain to work around the clock in a bid to modernize trading Tom’s Hardware

Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes asks Trump for early release from prison France24

Class Warfare

The New Race to Take on Food and Pharmacy Deserts Boondoggle

My Favorite Kitchen Tool Came From the County Fair 38 Years Ago Pax Culinaria

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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115 comments

  1. TimH

    ICE says its officers can forcibly enter homes during immigration operations without judicial warrants: 2025 memo NBC News

    Not quite. The expression “immigration operations” essentially covers all ICE activity.

    Actually:

    The ICE memo says that Form I-205 is not a search warrant and that it “should only be used to enter the residence of the subject alien to conduct an immigration arrest.”

    So not a general warrant, but should you tell ’em that Fred Bloggs doesn’t live here, and they break in anyway, I doubt that you’ll get any recompense through the courts.

  2. The Rev Kev

    ‘David J. Bier
    @David_J_Bier
    Photographer @mostafabassim1
    photographed this boy walking home alone with a snack being “randomly” approached by DHS. “After he was unable to produce documentation proving his citizenship, agents informed him that he was under arrest.” He said, “Can I just go home?” Answer: No.’

    ICE could make things much easier for themselves if they published their own rules of engagement. Such as-

    -ICE agents do not need warrants to ransack somebody’s home.
    -Following a very young girl home like they were once buddies with Jeff Epstein is AOK.
    -Pointing rifles at American children is OK if it makes them feel safe.
    -All children must carry papers showing that they are American citizens because this is normal.

    Can’t wait for a country like China to complain in front of the UN about all these violations of human rights. And what would the US Ambassador to the UN reply to that? ‘It’s OK when we do it.’

    1. ilsm

      If US can accuse Khameini of killing in cold blood 18,000+ insurgents, aka peaceful [CIA led] protesters…..

      Kim Jung Un can accuse Trump of killing thousands of Ms Goods! in Minnesota.

      + if IRGC and Basij militias are so murderously effective….. they could be in Tel Aviv in two weeks.

      In other news: the Ike carrier strike group is in Sixth Fleet the eastern Med! Lincoln CSG will be near Oman soon.

      THAAD are going to theater, as well as more Patriot batteries. The CSG aircraft are no use, but the Arleigh Burke destroyers could provide air and missile defenses over Israel and Qatar…. As well as cruise missile barrages (TLAM) on Iran.

      USAF F-15E from UK added to their usual deployment air fields in Jordan. To engage UAV’s.

      Looking for events after stock markets close…. Friday.

      1. Lefty Godot

        Some kind of attack on Iran is coming. If Russia really wanted to forestall this attack on their presumed ally, they should tell the US, “Fine, if you want to attack Iran, then we will attack the UK immediately afterwards with no further warning. First step will be elimination of the Bank of England, Faslane, Brize Norton, Marham, Cheltenham, and MI6 HQ. From there, if you continue, so will we. We have plenty of credible evidence the UK has been involved in terrorist attacks inside Russia. So make our day and start sending missiles at Iran.”

        1. Wukchumni

          Apropos of nothing, but over a 4 day stay in Star Wars Canyon in Death Valley NP last week, we saw not 1 hint of an F-18 or F-35, when usually we get 15-20 low overflights in such a skein.

          Practice over?

          1. JCC

            FYI, They are still flying daily over Searles and Panamint Valleys from Edwards and China Lake, to include irregular sonic boom window shakers

      2. AG

        Nima this moment with Andrei Martyanov speaks about Iran preparing for whatever may happen.
        Martyanov says many Chinese transport planes delivering whatever.
        He doubts it´s AD because it would take too long to learn operating those for Iranians and also they did not fare well against India.
        Also he assumes only symbolic military action would take place.
        He states that much US personnel has returned to the US and he thus doubts a serious US engagement. But nothing is sure.
        https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2026/01/nima-and-me_22.html

        1. NotThePilot

          I have no doubt Iran is preparing for anything, but I’m surprised nobody, even Trump’s critics, have considered that the grab-bag of assets rushing into the theater are to cover a retreat.

          It could always be a coincidence, but the timing of the US exiting the Arab part of Iraq & now abandoning Kurdistan seems odd. While a backroom deal with the Syrian gov (or the ISIS escapees) to attack Iraq is possible, the current situation still doesn’t look like it’s following any preferable plan for the US. However cynical the US gov may be overall, the military takes alliances pretty seriously at the personal level & I suspect is livid about abandoning Rojava like this.

        2. Polar Socialist

          Martyanov’s attitude towards China is often bordering on racist, so one has to take his comments with some caution.
          From the analyses I’ve seen – and given the misinformation war around the issue, there’s very few decent ones available – Pakistan’s problem wasn’t the missiles or radars, but that their system, Comprehensive Layered Integrated Air Defense, is build for a different type of war than India waged – it’s that simple.
          They have layers and depth, but the reaction times were too slow given India’s saturation type sustained attack. It’s my understanding that the “integrated” here doesn’t mean “networked” but “centralized”, in a way that the battle is led from the center, not independently by the batteries, battalions or regions.
          Also, Most of Pakistan’s populated and vulnerable areas are rather close to the Indian border, which means they have much less warning than India’s air-defenses.

          That said, it takes time to integrate new systems and weapons to existing networks, so even if Iran was receiving new systems from China, they won’t be operational for many months. But if China was transporting missiles (Russian, as China has hundreds of them) for Iran’s brand new S-400 systems, I bet even Martyanov would accept that.

          1. AG

            Thanks for going into detail!

            I am aware of the deficiencies of Martyanov of course.
            In this context on China I didn´t find him racist.
            He just said that the system didn´t have that much success.
            Whatever the reason – which you now explained.
            He is odd to put it mildly when it comes to “culture”, gender and ethnic differences.
            But many people will share his views there who wouldn´t regard themselves as racist in a pejorative sense.
            To assume one will always be Russian, Chinese etc. due to birth for the rest of one´s life is just nonsense. But that doesn´t mean of course people can´t respect each other. Even more so as these assumptions are widely shared.
            And it is the progressive tradition which I believe in that justified this civilizational war against Russia. So that´s nothing but words abused by dishonest elites…

    2. LawnDart

      Re; “tense video” of ICE

      Going after family crosses a line that is sacred, and chasing down that man’s daughter?

      1. JMH

        A “yes” vote by a congress critter on the DHS/ICE appropriations bill is a vote for his/her/its retirement from public life.

    3. Yalt

      “Misinformation”: “Moderate (conspiracy-adjacent claims on domestic ops, ICE, coordinated messaging)”

      “search visibility”: “Partially Suppressed (discovery throttled on high-risk queries involving ICE, Trump criticism, or immigration enforcement extremism)”

  3. Edmondo

    It’s nice to see that we have reverted to the original intent of our Founding Fathers.
    That Constitution thingie only applies to rich, white males.
    As God intended.

        1. erstwhile

          Big Orange Brain (BOB) aka. donald j trump…… And this little pig ran snarking all the way home.

    2. erstwhile

      I think that I detect some sarcasm here, but, to me, what you write has more truth in it than sarcasm.

  4. Henry Moon Pie

    Odor forces Davos evacuation–

    Fire and brimstone perhaps? Sam and Dave need to shut that Davos door to hell before more of them get out. We already have more of these demons than we can handle.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Ahem. Sam and Dean. Frankly I would be happy to see an Oreshnik dropped on top of Davos. It’s the only way to be sure.

      2. Irrational

        Very targeted, please, so as not to damage any ski lift infrastructure ;-)
        Davos is a really nice ski area (albeit expensive) and we would be delighted to reclaim January if the WEF move out.

    2. ChatET

      Trump crop dusting after he ate European McD’s. The European ones have more stringent dietary guidelines not good for an American with a usual high fat low fiber diet.

    4. tegnost

      Well my first thought was a bunch of opportunistic people not normally grouped in one place finding themselves in close proximity while knowing the general disdain in which they reside, again normally distributed in a way that makes them much less vulnerable as a group having a psychic fear that maybe someone might avail themselves of an opportunity that would benefit the general welfare?

  5. The Rev Kev

    ‘Brian McDonald
    @27khv
    Putin has responded to Trump’s invitation to join his new “Peace Council,” and floated a $1 billion contribution using Russian funds frozen under Joe Biden (my translation): ‘

    That cunning bugger. First he makes Russia’s membership conditional on fixing the Gaza situation. Second – and this is genius – he says that that $1 billion membership fee can be taken from Russia’s frozen assets. If that happened, then it would establish a legal precedent that this can be done for the rest of those frozen assets. He has laid a trap and now awaits to see if Trump is stupid enough to fall into it.

    1. Santo de la Sera

      He has laid a trap…

      Indeed, because Trump is well known for his respect for legal precedent.

  8. mrsyk

    Superb antidote this morning, thanks. It’s like they’re watching ICE jackbooting the neighborhood. “WTF?”

    1. The Rev Kev

      Was intrigued by that antidote too. The caption reads ‘A cat and a dog watching from a balcony, Paris, 1930.’ Best buds forever.

      2. Nikkikat

        I also loved this photo there was no mistaking the real Nikkikat and one of his many buddies, both
        Human and animal.

  9. The Rev Kev

    “Israeli bullets found in bodies of children killed in Iran — TASS source ”

    Now that is a coincidence. Pretty sure that several hundred of the Israeli civilians killed on October 7th were also killed by Israeli bullets. Whatever. But this article seems to confirm the story that the Mossad brought in ISIS terrorists during the riots to run up a body count and stir trouble by killing children so that the US would intervene.

    1. ambrit

      And now the US is “repatriating” ISIS families from Syria to Irak. Want to bet that some Iraki militias are trying to figure out how to shoot down some of those air assets full if ISISies as they cross the border?

  10. AG

    re: National Endowment for Democracy (NED) & THE SQUAD

    JACK POULSON Substack:

    The entire Squad, except for one member who did not participate, voted on Wednesday to preserve funding for the U.S. Government’s international political action and regime change arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which transitioned to dark money last year under the justification of “duty of care” of its international fundees.

    The votes against the NED defunding amendment included:
    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)
    Ayanna Pressley (D-MA)
    Delia Ramirez (D-IL)
    Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
    Rashida Tlaib (D-MI)
    Summer Lee (D-PA)

    https://substack.com/@jackpoulson/note/c-200155386

  11. Yeti

    Re: Canada making plans for US invasion.

    Just received a letter from RCMP informing me as a registered gun owner that if I own one of 2500 guns that have been banned I will not have immunity from prosecution as of October 2026. So far according to their letter they have recovered 12,000 “illegal” firearms for the grand total of $22 million. That works out to over $1,800 per gun. Meanwhile the armed forces are making plans for resistance groups both soldiers and civilians to fight a clandestine war like the Taliban, which includes arming civilian militias. I suspect given the rhetoric coming out of Washington most if not all gun owners will be doing a lot of hunting out of boats this year…..leaky boats

    1. Sam Culotte

      “Madman Across the Border.”

      And you can see it very well
      I’m a joke and you know it very well
      I’m one of those you’ve known from long ago
      Take my word, I’m a madman don’t you know

      “Once a fool had a good part in the play
      It is so, yes, and I am very much here today
      It’s quite peculiar in a funny sort of way
      They think it’s very funny everything I say
      Get a load of him, he’s so insane,
      Another glimpse of the madman across the border…”

      A bowdlerization of Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water”. From a border Canadian. Dedicated to Donald Trump.

  12. Wukchumni

    On Tilt Harper’s Magazine
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Gambling is so very out of hand, and what if we took the parameters back to pre-Atlantic City, and only allowed it in one state, similar to Macao’s role as Las Vegas in China?

    I had no idea that gambling was a loss leader in suicides as far as addictions go, but I get it.

    Take a look at every third young adult male you come across next time you’re out and about. He’s got a really bad gambling addiction and yet you’d never know it from looking at him.

    1. ambrit

      Not to sound flip but just walking along the public streets now is a gamble. Especially in Minnesota right now.
      Stay safe. Go grey.

      1. Wukchumni

        I just hate it when life imitates art, and the recent movie Civil War appears to be a how-to guide in that regard.

        Joel: There has to be some mistake. We’re American, right?

        Unnamed Soldier: Okay. What kind of American are you? You don’t know?

    2. ACPAL

      IMHO the stock market is legalized gambling. You pour money into it betting that it will rise (usually a good bet) and hoping you can liquidate before the market collapses.

        1. Sam Culotte

          I’ve mentioned this before but I think it bears repeating. As a life-long (unsuccessful) gambler (horses only), I can safely say that today’s on-line betting is a completely other world—and a dangerous one at that.

          In the long run, and barring a large lucky hit, ALL gamblers lose. Over time, their bankrolls get worn down to nothing by the rake, what the track or house or website take out of the betting pools. And this leads to two axioms of gambling:

          1. The less one exposes one’s bankroll to the rake, the fewer the losses.
          2. The more one exposes one’s bankroll to the rake, the greater the losses.

          Today’s on-line bettors are violating axiom #2. They are headed for disaster.

          1. Wukchumni

            Around 1990, worked for a firm and we bought a very large coin deal from a casino owner in Reno, and you’d recognize the name of his family’s casinos in Reno, Las Vegas and Laughlin if I mentioned it, but I wont…

            Went out to dinner with him and tried to make small talk and asked innocently enough what his favorite casino was, and without batting an eyelash, this 80 year old barked out…

            ‘Laughlin!, I get almost half of my employees and other casinos employees wages back over the tables-as there is nothing to do there, it’s more like 10-15% in Vegas and Reno.’

            I was a bit gobsmacked he would say that~

          2. Anonymous 2

            A tip given to me by a professional gambler on horses: work out where the stables are putting their money.

          3. JCC

            The last I knew, back in my young horse betting days, the rake in NY State was 17% of every dollar bet.

            That was my wake up. Now I go to the track only occasionally and primarily for the beer and hot dogs…and laughs.

          4. lyman alpha blob

            I played some low stakes poker at a big casino once for a few hours. I wound up one or two hundred dollars ahead overall, but when I calculated the rake taken from the hands I’d won, I realized I would have won at least double. Absent new players joining the table, the house would grind everyone down to zero eventually. Only played with friends since then – rather lose to them than the house.

    3. Mikel

      And this:
      https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/business/prediction-markets-polymarket-kalshi.html/
      “Making a living betting on prediction markets just might be one of those era-defining occupations — like being a Wall Street trader in the 1980s, a dot-com founder in the 1990s or an influencer in the 2010s. The cultural conditions that have given rise to the existence of the job have all, separately, been the subject of countless chin-stroking examinations. There are the young men increasingly drawn into screens and online communities; the breakdown of traditional career paths, and the rise of make-your-bag YOLO-ing into highly speculative investments; the post-trust, post-expert epistemics of mathematical probability and the wisdom of crowds; the contemporary casino-ization of everything. They may have found their ultimate confluence in the full-time predictions trader.”

      This is what they are telling themselves:
      “It’s important that we’re coming up with better ways to think about what’s going to happen in the future,” Domer continued. 🤣🤣

    1. Wukchumni

      Statistically every American has a gun, but that’s not gonna help when the power goes down next week in the south, totally unprepared for as much as 20 inches of snow and temps nobody is used to there…

      Here’s what you ought to have on hand, in lieu of that AR 15

      4x hot water bottles (old school warmth)

      4x battery powered headlamps

      6x longer lighters

      1x Coleman 2 burner stove

      10x 1 pound propane canisters

      50x gallons of water (20x 2 & 1/2 gallon rectangles)

      1/2 a cord of cut firewood

      1x AM/FM battery powered, solar powered and hand crank all weather radio

      1x battery backups for headlamps and radio

      1x French Press

      1x box of 192 Mini Moos shelf stable half and half

      3x pounds of coarse ground coffee

      10x liters of shelf stable milk

      Canned food works fine, but requires cleanup so make sure you have plenty of sturdy paper bowls and plates. Freeze dried food requires no cleanup, but is much spendier.

      2x pounds of red popcorn

      1x liter of olive oil to cook popcorn on the stove in a pot.

      1. tegnost

        One or two of those solar generators and a water boiler for those who can afford it, and propane indoors should be avoided, especially in close spaces. Those little honda generators are great but they cost something like 1000 bucks.

        1. Retired Carpenter

          Predator inverter gensets from Harbor Freight? Very quiet. Cheaper than Hondas. Work reasonably well. I use one on jobs. No issues past five years.

          1. JCC

            Or a good dual fuel Champion. Also reasonably priced and quiet. And the propane lasts a long time.

            I dumped my used Honda for one and put a few hundred in my pocket. :)

      2. Karen

        A wood stove to burn your firewood would be nice.

        3x pounds of fine ground coffee will last twice as long as coarse ground.

        Any oil will work for popcorn, I prefer peanut oil.

        A generator and about 10 gallons of gas (for a start).

        YMMV.

      3. Buzz Meeks

        Better off with the vintage Coleman equipment and Coleman white gas. The profane congeals when it gets down in the forties and thirties and won’t fire.
        I collect old Coleman stoves and lanterns from the Forties to mid Seventies. When we had the Christmas blizzard a couple of years ago four lanterns kept the first floor of 1890 Victorian between 55-60F during three day power outage.

  14. The Rev Kev

    “FBI’s Washington Post Investigation Shows How Your Printer Can Snitch on You”

    Not really new this. I once read an article about how if you printed out a colour image, certain dots were also printed that gave the complete identification of the computer that was hooked up to that printer. You would never notice these dots but a quick forensic examination (I think with a UV light) would make those dots pop out that would show those numbers. Thing is, I read this article about thirty years ago so no doubt the technology has gotten better since.

    1. ambrit

      Perhaps this is why Kinkos was forced out of business by the elites? Public copiers are excellent privacy shields for the odd Pamphleteer. Just wear your pattern disrupting hijab to fool the CCTV lenses.

  16. The Rev Kev

    ‘Max Kozlov 🇺🇦
    @maxdkozlov
    “This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board.” ‘

    I suspect that over the next three years you are going to need a much bigger sheet. Regardless. This post attracted the attention of a lot of MAGA people going by the comments. It’s insane-

    https://xcancel.com/maxdkozlov/status/2013798788285047065

    1. Wukchumni

      Watched the war on science here in Sequoia NP, where an expert on Sequoia trees felt it was better to quit and take the 7 months of severance pay, as she was gonna be fired anyway.

      The harshest one though was a friend who put in 14 years as a seasonal before being considered for a permanent position, which he attained in 2024, with his first year being 2025 and gone like the wind, mutiny of the botany. (his expertise)

    2. VP

      I read some of the comments.
      It’s disturbing that there is so much lack of trust in the work or outcomes of these federal grants. I am not sure how we as a population can do to move forward collectively in science and technology.
      I think that when the future historians look at the last 2 to 3 decades, they will be astounded at the monumental blunders that we as a society committed. Right from giving the keys of industrialization, science and key knowledge work to the east to hollowing out our intellectual capital and then turning on each other.

      1. Geo

        “so much lack of trust in the work or outcomes of these federal grants”

        I get why so many are skeptical of experts but what drives me batty is so many of the same put their trust into failed comedian podcasters like Rogan, Dore, and other nitwits. Sure, the experts have made blunders and there’s clearly been corruption in some areas but to totally abandon the sciences that have helped build modern civilization because some bitter dude on a podcast brings on RFK Jr. or some other alternative “expert” and brush off the real scientists as paid-off scammers is crazy.

  17. ProNewerDeal

    Yves/NC Financial gurus, do you suspect the Trump Exec Branch is rigging the CPI-U numbers (moreso than any possible prexisting/Biden-era status quo rigging) since the USG shutdown?

    Official CPI-U is flat (technically a tiny deflation) since the USG shutdown. The pre-shutdown 2025-09 value was 324.8, post-shutdown values of 324.122 on 2025-11 & 324.054 on 2025-12.

    “My lived experience” “anectdata” would suggest at a minimum a continual mild inflation exceeding the 2pct Fed target. Coffee & dark chocolate in particular are way up from 12 months ago. Definitely does not seem that prices are flat or in mild deflation.

    Possible #FakeNews CPI-U numbers from Trump? “What do ya think?!” (c) Ed Schultz

    1. nyleta

      It is the same the world over, inflation is systematically under reported for financial purposes, the best estimates are Tim Morgan’s RCCI.
      Long term interest rates are however starting to respond, in Australia a new benchmark 10 year gov. bond was just issued at a 4.75% coupon, the last one was a 4.25% coupon. Bank term deposits over 12 months are already responding to this so it works its way into the economy.
      For the US the Fed will do well to be able to pause rate cuts this time with the extreme pressure they are under, it is alright for Mr Powell but the others have years to go. If these reports of Chinese counter-measures to the Venezuelan oil thefts are true then stagflation because of political economy block forming is in all our futures.

    2. neutrino23

      Yes, I am very skeptical of the numbers being put out by Trump. Look at it another way, if they were truthfully high he would be screaming his head off about it.

      In a related vein, I read somewhere – maybe here – that prices for low income people are not accurately recorded. There is a nonprofit that checks this. They go through someplace like a Dollar store and check the posted prices then scan the bar codes and purchase items and check the receipts. The values on the receipts are higher. I guess, with no proof, that only the posted prices go into the inflation report.

      1. Karen

        Trump says everything is rigged against him. He says this because he will rig anything he can in his favor. Takes one to know one.

    3. ArvidMartensen

      The CPI figures have been fake since the early 1980s. Substitution and all.
      Likewise the unemployment figures. When employed = 1 hour of work a week.

      Both are scams by the rich for the rich, used by politicians to please their donors.

      As in – ordinary citizen saying things are much worse since he was a boy, and being told by an economist and a politician that the stats say he is wrong.

  18. flora

    re: Leaked Doc: Homeland Security’s Domestic Terror Obsession — Ken Klippenstein

    Of course. This makes perfect sense by the Iron Law of Institutions. The more “terrierism” they can claim the larger their importance, increased funding, and personnel growth they can ask for as necessary to combat the “threat”.

  19. Mark Gisleson

    Back in the ’90s I helped an FDA scientist transition to civilian employment. She was sick to death of not being allowed to do science. She knew exactly which grocery store items she wanted to put under a microscope but she was only allowed to do the tasks assigned to her. No one to her knowledge was ever allowed any independent leeway to conduct their own tests.

    The graph shows Trump cutting funding to Federal scientists. Is there a corresponding graph showing cuts to science productivity? Because it appears federal scientists spend more time suppressing science (COVID ‘vax’ results, defense of the childhood vax schedule, pretending the old food pyramid never existed, rushing new pharmaceuticals to market, etc.) than they spend doing “science.”

    If nothing else, govt science needs to have its bureaucracy reduced: too many GS-17+’s, not nearly enough actual working (not administrating) scientists.

    Science is great stuff IF you can keep govt from contaminating it with politics and paybacks to political donors.

    1. AG

      Yes!
      Shamir is quiet interesting. I had forgotten about him.
      Everyone should watch it.

      You won´t be disappointed.
      It´s a bit in the tradition of Alan Berliner, Marcel Ophüls, Stanislaw Mucha, or Michael Moore where the documentarian gets involved in a provocative way but not moronic as nowadays often the case.
      I am never sure about this genre. But when it works it certainly is engaging with the audience.

      Of lesser artistic value but it corresponds with above:
      The film about Norman Finkelstein from 2009

      American Radical – The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
      88 min.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R4KV9wAnsU

  21. pjay

    – ‘Zelensky-Sorosite-EU alliance against U$A’ – Events in Ukraine

    I really wish commentators would stop framing this as Europe vs. “the USA”. It is not. It is the Euro-Atlanticist alliance, NATO and its proxies, vs. *the Trump administration* – and not even all of that. There is plenty of “Euro-Atlanticist” support within the foreign policy Establishment in the US. They have been doing, and will continue to do, everything they can to sabotage any real attempts at Russia reconciliation. One reason why they have been so ineffective in countering Trump’s increasing foreign policy craziness recently is because they completely shot their wad with a bunch of fake or “trumped” up lawfare and Russiagate crap and impeachment bs (certainly the first one anyway) during his first term. That, plus the ineptitude of the Democrats, gave Trump the Presidency and the determination to surround himself only with loyal yes-men and women. With a worthless Congress, a completely delegitimated media, and little resistance in the administration, Trump does what he wants.. But to portray Trump’s erratic attacks on Europe as “US” policy distorts the actual dynamics of the situation.

  22. Wukchumni

    In memory of:

    Xmas cards, got 3!

    Cashiers at the McCoy’s eatery and other eateries in the Mammoth ski resort are now done by placing your food and beverage items under a scanner, which reads it very efficiently and demands payment by card (folding money is hereby verboten-casualties of the War On CashⓇ ) and off you go.

    Wonder what those dozen people who used to have cashier jobs on the mountain, do now?

  23. Lefty Godot

    Re: the latest “scientists may finally know” headline, this one about childhood memory–I don’t think it is accepted that you can identify which neurons hold a memory (they use the quaint old term “engram”) or even that memories are held in specific neurons versus in patterns of firing among different sets of neurons. And jumping from there (experiments on mice) to ASD in humans also seems very suspect to me. I think humans do retain access to some memories from babyhood but they’re all disconnected flashes from different times. I don’t think we start forming narrative memories that connect a set of images in a time sequence until we get to around 22-23 months old. Because that’s around when our capacity to construct mental narratives really kicks in and starts operating in a consistent manner.

    1. Jeff W

      As I mentioned just 10 months ago, science fiction writer Ray Bradbury said he could remember the day he was born, something that he attributed to postmaturity, i.e., in his case, being born (he said) at 10 months.

  24. Norton

    Clinton contempt filings are poetic justice. They attempted to substitute some BS interview, and signed statements, for the standard grilling of mere mortals under oath.
    The last-ditch efforts by Jeffries, attorneys and others to slow down that process are laughable.
    Letting the course of justice continue may even start to restore some faith among people.

    Fast forward, sorry, Bubba, no conjugal visits with a fellow inmate.

  25. Mikel

    The Great Entertainment – Kyla Scanlon

    “It seemed like Fukuyama was right about the end of history – that liberal democracy had won, and the great ideological battles were over. But he also warned about what comes after – in a world without genuine struggle, people seek conflict. They get bored.”

    But the WORLD wasn’t without struggle.

    It’s as though saying that and seeing other fissures would mean admitting this situation doesn’t come along because everything is fantastic.

  26. Wukchumni

    Leavitt to Believer

    In this week’s episode it turns out that Karoline used to be Eddie Haskell and you know how the evangs hate hate hate anything trans, and no dangling cross around her pretty little neck is going to help. She tries to school us on understanding Icelandic gaffes too.

  28. none

    FBI’S WASHINGTON POST INVESTIGATION SHOWS HOW YOUR PRINTER CAN SNITCH ON YOU The Intercept

    It looks to me like this was done by the printer management software running on the local network, rather than by the printer itself. When you click “print” on an office PC, typically the file gets uploaded to a local network through some spooling software, which queues it for printing and eventually prints it. In this case, the spooling software saved a copy.

    The file being printed in this case was classified info and there was also other stuff like video surveillance showing the guy printing the file, so it seems to me that he was being stupid. You have to assume that workplace networks monitor all of their traffic even when they’re not in classified systems.

    Anyway I wouldn’t freak out about printer hardware, though one never knows. Printer from 2004 is sounding good.

    https://biggaybunny.tumblr.com/post/166787080920/tech-enthusiasts-everything-in-my-house-is-wired

  29. Mikel

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TD2SqR_6mso/

    Just the opening.
    The Panopticon that is supposed to be worker housing.

    Apparently, there are going to be plenty of human workforces in the future.

    This is the quiet part out loud.
    All kinds of psyops being thrown at people to make them think this kind of future is needed. All kinds of things said to make people afraid enough to accept it.

  30. lyman alpha blob

    RE: Are ‘Jeopardy!’ Contestants Really That Bad At Questions About Sports?

    I’d say that in general, yes they are. Nerds are just not that into sportsball. In high school I was on our quiz show team that competed against other high schools on a radio show. Another kid and I were nerds, but also huge sports fans. We did about as well as other schools on most categories, but we absolutely dominated them when it came to sports questions. If anybody on other teams even tried to answer those questions, we weren’t aware of it as we ran the category. Too bad the whole thing wasn’t sports trivia – we could have been contenders!

    1. Mark Gisleson

      You also just described most transgender sports [biological boys on girls teams] supporters.

  32. Mikel

    Well, M. Hudson was on Dialogue Works today and basically said they better watch out in Iceland.
    Those were Freudian slips in that speech.

    1. AG

      Sorry for asking (I have not yet listened to it) but did he lay out the reasons why the US would see Iceland as a necessity.

      1. Mikel

        He says more, but in general:

        “There’s no point in taking Greenland over militarily unless you
        control Iceland also because then you have a a kind of seaborn Majino line.”

        And

        “…the Silicon Valley people look at Iceland uh as not only militarily but as a vast support of energy through a volcanic uh it’s hot water. It’s volcanic. Iceland I think a decade ago uh leased all its volcanic power in the north to aluminum companies to do aluminum refining since aluminum is made
        out of electricity and it didn’t get anything at all in exchange for this…”

  33. michael99

    From Fortune magazine: The Trump TACO trade is driving up the price of gold as central banks hoard bullion to hedge against the dollar.

    https://fortune.com/2026/01/22/gold-price-trump-taco-trade-central-banks/

    There is one set of financial institutions that is hedging against Trump’s ability to inject volatility into global markets: Central banks, which are hoarding gold.

    Traditionally, central banks have fuelled their reserves with the U.S. dollar. Although they still do that, they have also stepped up their purchases of gold. That is happening for two main reasons, analysts say. The first was Europe’s decision to seize $300 billion in Russian central bank reserve assets as a sanction for the invasion of Ukraine. That was “an event that reshaped perceptions of currency safety,” according to Adam Turnquist and Thomas Shipp of LPL Financial.

    The second is “macro policy risk.” Goldman Sachs this morning revised its gold price prediction upward to $5,400 per troy ounce by the end of the year. The Comex gold contract price sat at $4,828.40 this morning, just below its all-time high. Gold is up 11.24% year-to-date, a far better performance than the S&P.

    Today gold went above $4,900/oz. It was around $2,700/oz when Trump took office a year ago.

  34. Jason Boxman

    Betting on Prediction Markets Is Their Job. They Make Millions. (NY Times)

    Two months after quitting his job as a corporate C.P.A. to trade full time in prediction markets, Joel Holsinger, 26, was well along the road to making his first $100,000. It was approaching noon on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving last year, and President Trump was about to grant the annual turkey pardon.

    Holsinger had more than $700 riding on whether Trump would say two particular words. Both Kalshi and Polymarket, the two big prediction market platforms, were offering yes-or-no-style “mention markets” asking users to bet on whether the president would say more than a dozen words and phrases, among them “hottest,” “big beautiful bill,” “radical left/far left” and “rigged election/stolen election.”

    Holsinger had bought 500 “no” shares on “stuffing” at 86 cents, and 500 “no” shares on “cheaper” at 70 cents. He’d chosen the bets largely by studying word frequencies in transcripts of past Trump speeches.

    Trump was almost certain to talk about affordability, but he had a history of preferring to use “lower” rather than “cheaper”; since August, he hadn’t said “cheaper” once, Holsinger said. And he’d never, in past turkey-pardon remarks, talked about “stuffing.”

    Still, Holsinger was being conservative in how much he was willing to wager. “With a sample size of four,” he said, referring to the Thanksgivings in Trump’s first term, “I’m not going to do anything crazy.”

    On betting markets.

    America is a trash country that doesn’t make anything anymore.

  35. AG

    re: Truman and the bomb

    Alex Wellerstein had a new book on this topic come out end of 2025

    “The Most Awful Responsibility
    Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age”
    https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-most-awful-responsibility-alex-wellerstein?variant=43730342150178

    Wellerstein on the book in his blog

    “The Most Awful Responsibility”
    My new book on Truman and the bomb will be released on December 9!
    Dec. 4th 2025
    https://doomsdaymachines.net/p/the-most-awful-responsibility

  36. AG

    re: EU vs. privacy

    Austrian daily DER STANDARD

    use google-translate

    Expansion of the passenger data storage: EU due to plan Monitoring of all travel

    What is true for air travel already, is now to be extended to Land and water. In addition, the Monitoring should not only serve the law enforcement
    https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000304580/ausweitung-der-passagierdatenspeicherung-eu-plant-ueberwachung-von-saemtlichen-reisewegen?ref=rss

    the issue summarized by German TARNKAPPE blog

    Passenger data storage: EU plans total surveillance of buses, trains, ships and cars
    The EU plans to extend passenger data storage to buses, trains, ships, and cars despite data privacy concerns
    https://tarnkappe.info/artikel/it-sicherheit/datenschutz/passagierdatenspeicherung-eu-plant-totale-ueberwachung-von-bus-bahn-schiff-und-auto-325325.html

  37. AG

    re: lawsuit against Anna´s Archive

    U.S. Court Order Against Anna’s Archive Spells More Trouble for the Site

    Anna’s Archive is having a rough month. Following mysterious .org and .se domain suspensions, the shadow library is now facing a permanent injunction from a federal court. After dropping a multi-million damages claim, OCLC won a default judgment and permanent injunction against Anna’s Archive, which it plans to enforce against hosting companies.
    https://torrentfreak.com/u-s-court-order-against-annas-archive-spells-more-trouble-for-the-site/

      1. Jason Boxman

        I like these people already

        In December 2025, Anna’s Archive reportedly scraped almost 300 terabytes of data from music streaming service Spotify, publishing 256 million rows of track metadata and stating plans to publish 86 million audio files.[37] While the audio accounted for only 37% of Spotify’s full collection, it represented 99.6% of listens on the platform.[38] In response, the company stated that it had “identified and disabled the nefarious user accounts that engaged in unlawful scraping”.[37][39] Some criticized the release’s lack of coverage for less streamed songs.[40] The metadata release was compared to the open database MusicBrainz, which contains roughly 5 million tracks, around 37 times smaller.[37][41] Pro-copyright campaigners predicted that the leaked music would be used to train AI models.[39]

        Anna’s Archive (Wikipedia)

  40. ArvidMartensen

    Wildly gyrating values around a mean generally says tipping point / transition condition approaching.

    What would this look like? I’ll take a punt and say mammals won’t thrive under the new weather conditions.

  42. Jason Boxman

    MAGA on the march

    Fed’s main gauge shows inflation at 2.8% in November, edging further away from target (CNBC)

    The personal consumption expenditures price index, a measure the Fed uses as its main forecasting tool, showed inflation at 2.8% for the month both for headline and core in November.

    The readings were in line with market expectations but showed inflation still above the central bank’s 2% target.

    Personal income rose 0.1% in October and 0.3% in November, the latter 0.1 percentage point below the forecast. Also, consumer spending increased 0.5% in both months.

    If prices go up, spending goes up?

  45. Acacia

    Re: The Case for Bathroom Mandates

    An odd article. His example is San Francisco.

    Disclaimer: long ago, I used to live in San Francisco, and since then I have lived in other countries where public bathrooms are clean, plentiful, easy to locate, and mostly free. In my experience, at least, it is only in the US that you must generally be a customer and vetted by staff to receive a bathroom key, often attached to a large piss- and feces-stained block of wood, i.e., because the establishment believes you might try to steal the key.

    The article does not seem to reflect any awareness that the lack of public bathrooms in the US is connected with the class structure, and the associated unwillingness to deal with the “homeless problem”.

    The last time I visited San Francisco, I found myself looking for a public restroom around the Embarcadero. I found only one, occupied, with an impatient office worker loitering outside. Assumed my place in the queue, only to observe the office worker angrily banging on the door and yelling at the unseen occupant. “Just a minute, man!!” came a raspy voice from inside. Office worker turns to me and mutters with utter contempt: “Some homeless guy is in the there!”

    In an instant, I saw what I had left behind: a social order in which even our basic bodily functions have all been privatized. Public bathrooms are few, so is it a surprise if homeless also use them, perhaps for extended periods to bathe, etc.?

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