Links 2/16/2026

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1. bertl February 16, 2026 at 7:18 am

   “West intel agencies can determine Navalny death (Ecuador dart frog poison) without having access to the body (in Russia)…” Alex Christoforou.

   Alex underestimates British ingenuity. Whoever had access to the body samples, complete with a detailed chain of custody complete with nanosecond by nanosecond details of refrigeration temperatures on its long adventure packed odyssey to the UK, gave them the full Monty at Python Down, the miracle lab which convinced the world that the Skripal kidnapping was not just a bad re-write of the long lost Goons episode on Schrödinger’s parrot. Having Starmer’s hands on the tiller of state has made British Science Great Again. Thank you, Sir Kurr!
   1. Aurelien February 16, 2026 at 8:47 am

      I don’t know whether Christoforou is being deliberately obtuse or whether he just doesn’t understand how intelligence agencies work.
      When I saw the report, I, and I imagine many other people, assumed the claims were based on either documents recovered by western intelligence services (for example an autopsy report) or on a human or technical source within the Russian government who was in a position to know, or who had communicated his understanding to someone else. Whether these reports or documents are reliable, and whether they are being used honestly is, of course, another issue.

      As an analogy, imagine that the Russian government announces it has proof from intelligence sources that Zelensky is a heroin addict. Everybody would understand, I think, that this wasn’t based on SVR agents arriving by helicopter to snatch Zelensky and subject him to a medical examination, but through a leak of information of some kind.
      Same here.
      1. The Rev Kev February 16, 2026 at 9:19 am

         In all fairness, Alexei Navalny has been dead exactly two years now and suddenly they announce the cause of his death at a Munich Conference? As for those intelligence agencies, don’t the people there have to take a professional course in how to lie? Time was when intelligence agencies were headed by hard-core realists because that was what the job required. Nowadays you have creatures like MI6’s Blaise Metreweli and I doubt the the European intel agencies are any better.
         1. Glen February 16, 2026 at 8:35 pm

            No kidding. Didn’t care much about this back then, and even less now.

            But now every time the MSM throws up stuff like this, I always ask back – sounds like more Epstein class craziness, what’s in the Epstein files about this?

            Just saying…
      2. Darthbobber February 16, 2026 at 9:24 am

         Absent evidence, I see no reason to assume such claims are based on anything at all, as opposed to fabricated.
      3. JohnA February 16, 2026 at 9:37 am

         If frog poison had actually been used by the Russians, why bother with an autopsy anyway? Or perform an autopsy and include genuine findings in an intelligence report that was then somehow leaked?

         And the frog poison was supposedly supported by lab tests done in 5 western countries. The claim apparently was based on bodily samples from Navalny smuggled out of Russia. One summer recently when flying out of France, I had some food protected by a frozen freezer block. Even though it was sealed, the French security guard confiscated the block. Not sure how you would keep bodily samples pure and uncontaminated when trying to be as unobtrusive and innocent looking as possible.
         1. vidimi February 16, 2026 at 10:11 am

            the autopsy results found no trace of anything suspicious. But tree frog poison leaves no trace. Therefore, he must have died by tree frog poison.
            1. AG February 16, 2026 at 11:22 am

               exactly
               thanks
            2. AG February 16, 2026 at 12:18 pm

               p.s.
               If the Russian dictatorship is so evil and powerful why of all poisons do they have to use frog poison from who knows what part of the world if simple substances would do too? After all the Russian dictator has not to fear any accountability at home.

               This is the very same irrational logic NATO applies when mocking the Russian military while trumping up its threat: RU is about to conquer EU but they are so incompetent that they can´t even conquer Ukraine and have already lost 20M soldiers.
               1. ISL February 16, 2026 at 8:06 pm

                  I have heard bullets are quite effective (or a fellow prisoner with a knife), too (outside of Hollywood), or self-hanging, like Epstein. Silly Russians and tree frog poison
         2. paul February 16, 2026 at 11:22 am

            The frog poison theory is delightful, is it not?

            Only a deeply unempathetic regime* would enslave frogs for homicidal purpose. Democracies just harvest their legs.

            Russia is such a regime I am incessantly told.

            Democracies need only leave people alone in their cells to achieve the same outcomes.

            *OSINT slang for a disfavoured government, mandated in BiBiC coverage of the foreigns.
      4. nap February 16, 2026 at 9:50 am

         When I saw the report I, and I imagine many other people, smelt a bloody great rat!
      5. Skip Intro February 16, 2026 at 10:02 am

         Others may have assumed the claims were made my agencies who had a hand in Navalny’s death in prison, which was much more useful to, say, MI6, than his continued obscurity. It was used to launch the career of the telegenic widow, after all.
         1. lyman alpha blob February 16, 2026 at 11:47 am

            The funny part is the Euros are claiming that only the Russians had the means and motive to whack Navalny in prison, but also that their results were based on some evidence that was smuggled out of Russia. If you have someone in place who can grab up Navalny-bits for you, that kind of negates the prior claim.

            If you want to unalive someone in prison, Occam’s razor says you don’t procure obscure frog venom from Ecuador, you pay someone off to give them the shiv. I’ll let myself out.
      6. AG February 16, 2026 at 11:20 am

         British intelligence has not even deserved that benefit of doubt which we might apply in other instances. Their ideology and actions are so deranged and their legacy and culture of lies, lies and repeated lies are so profound, their ruthlessness, brinkmanship and above all HYPOCRISY infuriating – I would choose to simply not report this. It´s a goddam fabrication.

         Why am I so angry?
         Because several people already came to me with this very BS.
         They actually believe this incredible crap. It´s all over national news.

         And in Germany every new little bit about Mr. N. feeds into war propaganda.
         Every new little bit of creepy lie bolsters the new RU/Putin hatred.
         Every new feature of demonization lessens the power of the antiwar movement.
         All the while Mrs. N. is parading around with UKR/RU Neonazis in open public in Germany with police protecting them as small as their group may have been.

         The same agencies that turned on Assange, on Skripal most likely, destroying THE GUARDIAN, on Craig Murray and other activists?

         While activists are paying fines and costs for being idealists those civil servants in the service of his majesty are being paid handsomely by the government for destroying and undermining the struggles to make this a saner world and hold power accountable

         Why on Earth should I sacrifice a single second of my time to their despicable opportunistic work.

         No. I think we should practice a complete shutting down of their “news” feed.

         Forgive me my rant.
      7. pjay February 16, 2026 at 11:29 am

         Well, perhaps I just don’t understand how intelligence agencies work these days. But I do know they just *make s**t up* all the time. Here in the US, because of certain laws that used to have some minor effect, our own intelligence agencies used to have to jump through a few hoops when they wanted to make s**t up, such as laundering propaganda through foreign journalists or foreign media, etc. But now they can just make s**t up with impunity. And do so regularly. Russiagate? The Skripals? Bounties in Afghanistan? Hell, the Gulf of Tonken? WMDs? I could go on forever.

         Now maybe there were actual documents or human sources of some kind. Maybe Russia even did it! But the idea that intelligence agencies wouldn’t just make s**t up, *especially* about Russia, strikes me as rather ludicrous. In this case, the timing strikes me as rather convenient. Also, cui bono from this “assassination”?
         1. The Rev Kev February 16, 2026 at 5:50 pm

            It was under Obama that the laws were changed so that propaganda agencies which broadcast to the world were now allowed to also broadcast to America itself.
      8. Revenant February 16, 2026 at 1:23 pm

         Everything about the presentation of this claim is that UK (at Porton Down) and the four other European countries have analysed samples. Not obtained reports. Now, in practical terms, that may be what happened, but the public impression that is being given, by commission and/or omission, is that *samples* have been analysed.

         The claim is preposterous. If the Russians wanted him dead, he could just have been killed by a fellow prisoner. It is almost as absurb for you to attack Christoforou for dismantling the claim on its own terms.
      9. Kouros February 16, 2026 at 3:56 pm

         Nobody would believe Zelensky is a heroin addict. Everyone is seeing the signs that he is a cocaine addict.
   2. AG February 16, 2026 at 12:47 pm

      German TV:

      Daily news reporting: “Countless supporters gathered at his grave to mourne.”
      Evening news: “A few dozen supporters gathered at his grave to mourne.”

      What happened?
      The available images simply did not allow to seriously claim “countless”.
      So they decided to change it.

      I am waiting for the day when fabricated AI images will go onto national TV news.
      Although it may well be that in re: of Iran this already happened.
   3. Jon Cloke February 21, 2026 at 7:07 am

      You can just imagine British intelligence tossing a coin, can’t you?

      “Heads it was Novichok, tails exotic frog poison – agreed?”
      1. vao February 21, 2026 at 7:37 am

         “I say, why not polonium?”
2. LadyXoc February 16, 2026 at 7:34 am

   I liked this Events In Ukraine piece on the EU Security Conference and Marco Rubio in particular: https://open.substack.com/pub/eventsinukraine/p/another-munich?r=24wb7&utm_medium=ios
3. The Rev Kev February 16, 2026 at 7:39 am

   “India Might Soon Replace Russian Oil With Venezuelan At Scale After All”

   India might but would it be wise. Is it a grade of oil that India really needs as it is so heavy? What about the fact that this oil has to come from halfway around the planet to reach India instead of Russia who is not that far away? Will India be comfortable with the fact that Trump can throttle that oil on a whim as compared to Russia’s steady imports? This all sounds like a Trump plan to make India dependent on oil that is controlled by him. What could possibly go wrong?
   1. paul February 16, 2026 at 11:26 am

      Trump’s pal Paul Singer can process the crude for India.

      Might cost a bit (lot) more, but what price can you put on a ‘sense’ of security?
4. Afro February 16, 2026 at 8:04 am

   Thoughts on the Kim Dot Com tweet? It’s explosive, certainly, but I don’t know if he’s considered credible and reliable.

   Why would Ukraine need Palantir to get them nuclear weapons?
   1. The Rev Kev February 16, 2026 at 8:31 am

      I think that at the very least he is worth listening too as he has had his run ins with the deep state. You read the replies to that tweet and there are a lot of people (bots?) pushing back here-

      https://xcancel.com/KimDotcom/status/2023165849721536672
      1. mrsyk February 16, 2026 at 9:02 am

         Looks like that tweet has been removed.
         1. The Rev Kev February 16, 2026 at 9:32 am

            I can still see that tweet, both the original version and the xcancel version. Perhaps it is being blocked regionally.
            1. raspberry jam February 16, 2026 at 9:43 am

               Twitter has been down this afternoon
      2. t February 16, 2026 at 10:06 am

         This is the Megaupload guy, right? Most recent headlines when he tried to rope Mr Beast into a weird collaboration and made noises about giving money to charity but then absolutely did not?

         I think he just after lost glory, if he ever wanted anything more.

         That said, I know someone who always said, starting before WikiLeaks, that Julian Assange wasn’t really invested in or interested in anything beyond being a big dog in some sphere, and look how that worked out for us.
   2. raspberry jam February 16, 2026 at 8:35 am

      Why would Israel need assistance from Palantir with AI targeting in Gaza?! They pioneered it! They’re at least a decade, maybe two ahead of anything Palantir could make!

      ETA: on the other hand Palantir makes an excellent fall guy if enough people believe they were behind the atrocities

      ETA x2: the part about Karp/Thiel backdooring and having kompromat on everyone might be true, there have been blinds about that for a year+ on crazy days and nights
      1. Skip Kaltenheuser February 16, 2026 at 11:36 am

         Jim Bamford knows intelligence agencies well, going back to his book The Puzzle Palace four decades ago. He wrote on Palantir’s involvement with Israel in the April 12, 2024 issue of The Nation, and that involvement was substantial, including the targeting of Palestinian civilians.

         https://www.thenation.com/article/world/nsa-palantir-israel-gaza-ai/

         How US Intelligence and an American Company Feed Israel’s Killing Machine in Gaza

         The article is part of an informative series in The Nation throughout 2023 and 2024 that Jim wrote on Israel’s mayhem and political influence.

         One published on March 23rd, 2023 should have been a thunderclap in Washington, but for all the obvious reasons wasn’t. It revealed Israel’s collusion with the 2016 Trump campaign, while all the political and media narratives were fixated on Russia.

         https://www.thenation.com/article/world/trump-israel-collusion/

         The Trump Campaign’s Collusion With Israel
         1. raspberry jam February 16, 2026 at 12:40 pm

            thank you for these links! to be clear my point is that technology-wise Israel has no need to go to Palantir for assistance as they have been using ML for targeting since the second intifada or earlier. I have no doubt Palantir IS working in Israel though as they are always hiring for Hebrew-speaking forward deployed engineers.
   3. Screwball February 16, 2026 at 9:26 am

      He posts some really wild stuff, and things not many others do. I wonder too, how credible he is. I don’t know the history but I have heard of him for quite a while.
   4. alrhundi February 16, 2026 at 2:59 pm

      I’d take anything he says with a grain of salt but he has been involved in Blackhat scenes so likely has some connections. He’s the creator of Mega Upload
   5. ChrisPacific February 16, 2026 at 3:53 pm

      It looks like a mixed bag. Some of it, like Palantir doing the AI for Israel, is already in the public domain – I assume he’s referring to additional evidence and details there. Given what Edward Snowden revealed, I’d be surprised if the mass surveillance claims weren’t true.

      Other bits are wild claims, like the CIA being a year away from defeating Russia (I wonder just how long they’ve been ‘a year away’). Nuclear weapons for Ukraine is odd, as well. Ukraine controlled the old Soviet era reactors and had ample access to fissile material before the war, and could probably have put one together very quickly if they wanted. Preventing this from happening was one of Putin’s key justifications for the invasion. Now it’s likely a lot harder. Nuclear weapons aren’t actually that useful as a secret capability – they need to be public to be a deterrent. Perhaps the idea is to one day announce them as a fait accompli.

      I struggle to imagine why the US would actually want to give Ukraine the ability to start a nuclear escalation on their own initiative – Zelensky has already been clear that he doesn’t think Ukraine should have to sacrifice itself to prevent a world war. All you’d need would be for the Banderites to morph into an armageddon cult if the war goes further south, and you’d have a recipe for disaster.

      I think this is probably a mixture of truth and wild exaggerations from Dotcom.
5. xformbykr February 16, 2026 at 8:08 am

   STAB IN THE BACK John Helmer. On Kremlin faction-fighting.
   The factions are Nabiullina and Dmitriev on one side and Lavrov, the military and intelligence on the other. According to Helmer, “Nabiullina and Dmitriev have combined to persuade Putin to allow them to make these Anchorage formula concessions to US negotiators Steven Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and Joshua Gruenbaum.” The concessions may be motivated by a desire to avoid an economic recession. IMO Russia may finally feel ‘extended’ (per Rand report) in the face of a planned maritime blockade.
   1. bystander February 16, 2026 at 10:07 am

      Helmer is uneven and he’s just wrong in this piece.

      Medinsky most definitely outranks Kostyakov. Kostyakov is the chief of Military Intelligence. That is beneath the General Staff (meaning Gerasimov), which then reports to the Defense Minister (Belousov). Medinsky as an aide to the President of Russia reports to Putin himself. So Medinsky has no boss except Putin and has direct access to him, versus two levels of officials standing between Kostyakov and Putin.

      I don’t see how he can be taken seriously in light of such a big and easily verified error.
   2. JohnA February 16, 2026 at 10:15 am

      Helmer has a longstanding beef with Lavrov about a visa issue. Not sure he would be objective about Lavrov to be fair.
      1. ChrisFromGA February 16, 2026 at 2:47 pm

         Helmer falls into the defeatist bucket, IMO. Every single piece I’ve read has the same bias – Putin bad, Russia is weak, and Putin is going to sellout the country any minute now.

         Not saying he’s wrong on everything. But it does appear that he has an axe to grind.

         We also have no independent evidence that his theory is correct. Perhaps in time, we will. But for now, it is all conjecture.
         1. Kouros February 16, 2026 at 4:07 pm

            My sense is that he is not a defetist. He seems to be on the realm of realists, like Mark Sleboda. And being scheptical on the oligarchs’ interests is for many a bonus point. He seems to be more aligned with the General Staff. Also, as an American that seems to prefer the Republic to the Empire (like Gore Vidal) he seems to agree that giving a nose bleed to the Americans and especially to Trump is the best medicine and is dissapointed that Putin doesn’t remember any judo.
            1. jrkrideau February 16, 2026 at 10:10 pm

               John Helmer is Australian. He has studied and worked in the USA but he’s Aussie.
         2. juno mas February 16, 2026 at 4:30 pm

            Yes. When the SMO began Helmer denigrated Russia’s capacity to fight. He was wrong then and he’s wrong now. Putin appears to actually be playin’ 11th dimension chess; Russia will stop doin’ what it’s doin’ when they get all of Novorussia.

            If oil products are abut 10% of Russia’s income intercepting tankers may be a tiny fraction of that. I’m sure the overland pipeline(s) to China will overcome the sea lane challenge.
   3. ciroc February 16, 2026 at 1:21 pm

      Trump’s strategy of escalating until the other side concedes worked even against Putin, who is much more astute. After all, no country can win a game of chicken against the United States.
      1. ChrisFromGA February 16, 2026 at 3:15 pm

         The one area where I can see a flaw in Putin’s leadership is the failure to impose significant costs on the US for continuing the war.

         Of course, the Ukrainians are paying a devastating price. Their country is ruined, a failed state on the doorstep of Europe. And Europe is also paying a high cost. With a wrecked economy, in particular Germany.

         However, outside of some high gas prices at the beginning of the war that contributed to inflation during the Biden term, the US has gotten off very lightly. Why doesn’t Russia see fit to sink an LNG carrier or cutoff all exports, including titanium and nuclear isotopes needed for reactors? Surely that is fair game, given the escalatory moves like the seizure of the oil tanker near Britain.

         Failure to impose costs on the US could mean that Russia wins the war in Ukraine technically, but loses strategically.
         1. Kouros February 16, 2026 at 4:10 pm

            This is Helmer’s dissapointment with Putin too. You should listen to the podcasts where he is a guest, not only what he posts on his website.
   4. Polar Socialist February 16, 2026 at 3:50 pm

      Even Meduza (funded by the British Foreign Office) states that the “Anchorage spirit” or “Anchorage formula” when used by Russian leadership means Ukraine ceding Donbass as a precursor for any talk of a cease-fire.

      Nothing more, nothing less.
6. The Rev Kev February 16, 2026 at 8:10 am

   ‘Chris Wicklund
   @WickyDubs2
   I’m surprised no storm chasers or meteorologists in this community are taking about how a huge nail to our community is occurring.
   The Trump Admin is going forward removing the supercomputer at NCAR.
   This supercomputer is where we develop research for weather models, physics cores, climate dynamics, MPAS, ensembles, WRF and improving the current models we use daily.’

   I can see two possibilities why this is being done. The first is so that it can be transported to the Pentagon who will reprogram it to work out things like ballistics in connection with the Trump Golden Dome so that it might be – kinda – effective.

   The second is that it will be installed in the basement of the Epstein Memorial Ballroom at the White House where it will be used to mine bitcoin for the Trump family. I’m going with Door Number Two.
   1. Koldmilk February 16, 2026 at 9:34 am

      It doesn’t appear that the supercomputers are being removed physically, but are being removed from administration by NCAR:

      The National Science Foundation has told the National Center for Atmospheric Research that management and operations of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center will be shifted to a third-party operator, saying the move is consistent with NSF’s cooperative agreement with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

      …

      NSF emphasized that the move does not eliminate the facility itself, but instead changes who will run the supercomputers and oversee day-to-day operations.

      Trump Admin yanks supercomputers from crucial climate research hub MSN.
   2. Kouros February 16, 2026 at 4:12 pm

      I paired that article with this one: https://strategicsimplicity.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-and-nuclear
   3. Simple John February 17, 2026 at 3:38 am

      Thank you for demonstrating the power of mockery.
      The use of the phrase “Epstein Memorial” with respect to every Trump action and plan and speculation to hit the media will soon tie him up like a tar baby. When readers and listeners automatically think “Epstein Memorial” whenever they hear about Trump, we will have delivered his Chinese finger trap. The harder he fights the more he loses.
      Please continue “Epstein Memorial Ballroom” and add such as the “Epstein Memorial Acquisition of Greenland”.
      1. Irritable February 17, 2026 at 8:51 am

         Jimmy Kimmel did this a few days ago on his show.

         He wants everyone to start using the term “Trump-Epstein Files” when referring to the files.

         Or substitute any billionaires’ name in, as needed. Many of them seemed to be party-buddies with JE.
7. JohnnyGL February 16, 2026 at 8:19 am

   We’ve added a 3rd carrier battle group to southwest Asia to prepare to launch a massive air campaign against Iran, stockpiled all kinds of supplies in the region and it seems we’re 1-2 weeks, at best, away from begging a huge war.

   There’s little public opposition within the Republican Party, except Massie and a few gadflies like that. There’s basically nothing from the opposition Democratic Party. They’re just happy to let Trump destroy his presidency, getting thousands killed in the process, plunging the world into crisis. All that seems worth it in hope of picking up a few extra congressional seats in the voter backlash that follows.

   What’s former president Obama talking about? Aliens.
   1. Lee February 16, 2026 at 12:54 pm

      “[The Democrats are] just happy to let Trump destroy his presidency, getting thousands killed in the process, plunging the world into crisis.”

      And no doubt they are equally happy to let Trump destroy Iran getting thousands killed in the process, plunging the world into crisis. Indeed, I’m sure the Democrats will probably let stand or fail to rein in a number of Trump’s more aggressive foreign policy moves.

      The only reason that I can imagine for a person not believing in aliens is that they have never shared their home with a housecat.
8. Tom Stone February 16, 2026 at 9:08 am

   When I look at Trump’s inner circle for a voice of reason and moderation I hear a deafening silence.
   He is delusional, and when things go wrong he reacts like a petulant 13 year old with no consideration of the consequences.
   Which are very likely to be horrific.
   So, what happens when his insanity becomes undeniable, as Genocide Joe’s dementia did?
   My bet is panic and drastic ill concieved actions.
   Hoo Boy.
9. Screwball February 16, 2026 at 9:33 am

   AOC and foreign policy…

   My PMC friends just love her. Thinks she should be president someday. Some even think a Harris/AOC ticket would be grand. But they are only part of the “deep” bench.

   These people are delusional. Do they forget this party lost to Orange Hitler TWICE? They might have a chance this time since T version 2 is so truly awful. But does it really matter when the crazed lunitic Bibi runs your foreign policy and owns most of congress?

   Where do we get off this ride?
   1. AG February 16, 2026 at 10:55 am

      Germans seem to cheerlead Gaaaaa-winnnn

      I try to provide some info from NCs recent post on “GavinKevin” but they don´t really care.
   2. Jason Boxman February 16, 2026 at 11:33 am

      These are the people that thought her “eat the rich” dress gambit was genius.

      The PMC is really a trash class.
      1. Dr. John Carpenter February 16, 2026 at 1:23 pm

         You mean “Tax the Rich”? She wouldn’t dared to have said Eat the Rich.
   3. LifelongLib February 16, 2026 at 1:59 pm

      Until one (or both) collapse, you have a choice between the major party that hasn’t done anything for the average American since 1965, and the other one that hasn’t since, I dunno, 1905.

      “Where do we get off this ride?”

      Canada, I guess.
      1. juno mas February 16, 2026 at 4:50 pm

         If Carney keeps his promise to trade more with China, Vancouver,BC is an option. Mildish climate and no language barrier.
10. JMH February 16, 2026 at 9:37 am

    Do I have this right. The US is about to start a war with Iran because Bibi and Miriam and the donors and the neocons want a war with Iran. Donnie has no choice? But wait, foolish person that I am, I know that only Congress has the power to declare war. Yes, that’s true, so the trick is to start the war but not declare it. Besides that’s the manly way to do it. I paraphrase, we don’t need no stinkin’ declarations. Meanwhile in Munich, Marco, who fronts the so-called State Department urges Europe to man up and show the global south who’s boss. Do I have that right? Ah, well, you have to expect this on amateur night.
11. t February 16, 2026 at 9:48 am

    Confused by the abstract of the Indonesian study – people with obesity and diabetes who never got sick enough to the hospital were given a strict and healthy diet (with vitamins including D which, it
    says. Many Indonesians are deficient in ). These meals were prepared for them. And then those people had better outcomes (so far) than people left to their own lifestyle choices. People who did not enjoy prepared meals but were ontinuing the life that led to obesity and diabetes?
12. flora February 16, 2026 at 9:50 am

    re: Trump State Department Official Has Called for Sterilizing ‘Feral’ Populations NOTUS. Rubio’s undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs.

    The open return of Jim Crow or social Darwinism. I can’t believe I’m reading this about a US govt cabinet undersecretary.
    From the Mississippi Free Press:

    The Troubling Past of Forced Sterilization of Black Women and Girls in Mississippi and the South

    https://www.mississippifreepress.org/the-troubling-past-of-forced-sterilization-of-black-women-and-girls-in-mississippi-and-the-south/
    1. Tom Stone February 16, 2026 at 2:05 pm

       The last forced sterilizations in Sonoma County took place the year I turned 18, 1971.
    2. JP February 16, 2026 at 2:55 pm

       Some of the same people want to punish them for having an abortion.
13. The Rev Kev February 16, 2026 at 9:51 am

    “Turkey’s Russian-Supplied S-400 Missile Systems Poised For Key Role Supporting a U.S.-Led Assault on Iran”

    Wait a minute. Aren’t these the same S-400 missile systems that the Turks promised the US that they wouldn’t turn on? And if the Turks lob off their missiles to protect Israel when Turkiye isn’t even being targeted, that may not be such a wise idea. Russia may be so annoyed they they might tell the Turks that it will be years before they can re-stock those missiles because of the war in the Ukraine. And that would mean that the Turks would be defenseless against any future Israeli aerial attacks because they don’t have the missiles anymore. Would that be wise?
    1. tegnost February 16, 2026 at 10:58 am

       Re Erdogan…
       Paula Abdul has him fingered…
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRYCzjIHr6Q
14. AG February 16, 2026 at 10:52 am

    re: Germany/NATO – Munich Security Conference

    German NACHDENKSEITEN blog

    anti-war speech by Sevim Dagdelen

    machine-translation

    
    “We don’t want your wars.”

    Sevim Dagdelen also spoke at the demonstration against the Munich Security Conference on Saturday . We are publishing her speech here.
    https://archive.is/sIKRK
15. AG February 16, 2026 at 10:54 am

    re: Germany deindustrialization

    German evening news TAGESSCHAU online site

    machine-translation

    “Made in Germany” goes to China

    Competition from China is also posing a technological challenge to German SMEs. Concerns about domestic business locations are leading companies to relocate production to the Far East.

    February 12, 2026
    https://archive.is/WDrEp
16. Jason Boxman February 16, 2026 at 11:31 am

    On Google giving up your data, I finally made the jump over to Proton Mail. So far it seems to work well enough. I brought my own domain; I’d been freeloading off Google’s free workspace account since 2006, and only in about 2022-23 did Google finally start charging for it. Shrug, what can I say, I’m cheap.

    Really I made the jump because Gmail insisted on telling me how to write; and you can’t turn that off without disabling spell check, grammar check, and whatever else. It’s indescribably insulting that Google thinks it can tell me how to correct my writing to the average style Gemini is trained for, to say nothing of my data being used to train Google’s LLM.

    The only downside I’ve really found is a) their desktop client sucks on x86 Mac, and they didn’t seem to care when I reported it, wanting me to upgrade to OS 26 which kills Launchpad among other things, which many of us actually use, for my report of bad performance to be valid. And for any sophisticated mail filtering, you gotta learn to use Sieve filters.

    The migration over from Gmail was automated, although moving from labels to folders manually after was a pain. I used labels like folders at Gmail, but PM has real folders as a concept for organization.

    Equally important, spam filtering seems as good as at Google. I basically haven’t gotten any spam in my inbox, and I’ve used the same email address for 27 years and it is posted all over the Internet.

    PM is coming out with competitors to Google Docs stuff as well and has their own VPN as well, but I have the cheapest plan (yep) and just get email.

    Stay safe out there!
    1. cfraenkel February 16, 2026 at 1:48 pm

       Really I made the jump because Gmail insisted on telling me how to write;
       Not to disagree with anything you said, but to provide context to others – there are two parts to Gmail. One is the server that sends and receives mail from other server; the other is the client that you read and write mail in, save mail in folders etc etc. It is pretty easy to use the gmail server and keep your reading / writing local using a standalone client, Thunderbird being the most common, but there are many others. Using your own client insulates you from their AI nagging.
       (doesn’t do anything to keep them from **reading** your mail, but then nothing does….)

       Switching servers is more complicated, because the big boys tend to ‘trust’ emails only if they come from other big providers in the club. Otherwise, you could just host your own email, but then no one would receive mails you sent out because the big providers would just assume they were spam.
       1. NN Cassandra February 16, 2026 at 5:09 pm

          Just small correction: it’s possible to run small mail server and the big boys will not automatically block you provided you can configure it properly and don’t start sending spam because someone hacked you. Things can get dicey if you try sending large volume of email that is technically legitimate, but might look like spam, for example newsletters to tens of thousands of readers.
17. Tom Stone February 16, 2026 at 12:24 pm

    Looking at the State of the Union I see an executive branch that is delusional, to put it nicely.
    A Military High command that has no problem following illegal orders to commit Murder, Piracy on the high seas or the kidnapping of a Head of State.
    They have weighed the cost of obeying their oaths and enabling murder VS the probability of losing a lucrative second career and have made their choice without hesitation.
    There’s the “Supreme Court” which seems to have been replaced by Chat GPT and there’s…Congress (Snickers) which is preoccupied with soliciting bribes from Oligarchs, sabotaging the efforts of their equally irrelevant colleagues, bonking pretty boys and girls provided by lobbyists and snorting cocaine provided by the same wonderful people.
    And I almost forgot about the folks at “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and the other estimable members of the fourth estate, bless their hearts.
18. ambrit February 16, 2026 at 12:37 pm

    A Mini North American Deep South Zeitgeist Report, Electronica Edition.
    Yours truly has plain old Google and uses Yahoo email. Recently, Bing has inserted itself into an unasked for “Landing Page” slash propaganda delivery service.
    In that “Landing Page” I am now regularly seeing “sponsored content,” as well as supposedly legitimate content that mirrors my Google searches and general internet traffic. The latest item is several links to “articles” that mirror my very recent, as in a half of an hour ago, searches for supporting links for comments I made in various NC links this morning.
    In other words, the Panopticon is now fully functional and in real time.
    I am now relearning the lesson that paranoia is a survival characteristic in today’s “Moderne Worlde.”
    Assume everything you post or speak over the air or online is monitored.
    Stay safe.
19. AG February 16, 2026 at 1:05 pm

    re: Gaza

    brief report by Helga Baumgarten for JUNGE WELT daily

    Albanese, against better Knowledge in the pillory

    The German and French foreign Ministers demand the immediate resignation of the UN special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories
    https://archive.is/d1SuI
    1. wol February 16, 2026 at 6:03 pm

       Chris Hedges on the Francesca Albanese attacks (4:58) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=godS-0hPQdU
20. Jason Boxman February 16, 2026 at 2:55 pm

    Trump is salting the earth with the ashes of Public Health that Biden took out to the woodshed

    Vaccine Makers Curtail Research and Cut Jobs (NY Times via archive.ph)

    In Massachusetts, Moderna is pulling back on vaccine studies. In Texas, a small company canceled plans to build a factory that would have created new jobs manufacturing a technology used in vaccines. In San Diego, another manufacturing company laid off workers.

    When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was picked in November 2024 to become the next health secretary, public health experts worried that the longtime vaccine skeptic would wreak havoc on the fragile business of vaccine development.

    Those fears are beginning to come true, according to executives and investors involved with companies that develop and sell vaccines and the technology that is best known for the Covid vaccines.

    At conferences and in interviews, they described the emerging consequences of the Trump administration’s dismantling of the longstanding federal support for vaccines.

    The FDA’s machinations on superior Novavax is thoroughly bipartisan, and continues apace, originating under Biden.

    Fun times.

    Biden’s vaccine approach also torched trust in actually sterilizing, widely used and safe vaccines.

    This debacle is going to play out across lifetimes.

    Perhaps no vaccine maker has been hit harder by the federal policy changes than Moderna. Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly questioned the safety and effectiveness of the technology around which the company has built its business. The technology, known as messenger RNA, or mRNA, instructs the body to produce a fragment of a virus that then sets off an immune response. It can be more quickly tailored and manufactured compared to traditional approaches.

    I gotta be honest, actually reading that, it sounds incredibly stupid. Let’s have cells in the body produce something foreign and unwanted! That can’t possibly cause any issues!

    And believe it or not, he’s actually right on something

    Mr. Kennedy has argued that Covid shots using mRNA are not effective because they do not prevent infection. He also once called them “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” Like all shots, mRNA vaccines sometimes cause side effects, but extensive research has found the shots are safe overall and that serious reactions occur rarely.

    “deadliest” comment aside, the rest of it is directionally correct.

    And Biden’s vaccine-only policy is what’s made this possible. Thank you Biden!
    1. marku52 February 16, 2026 at 4:05 pm

       If you want me to believe that all the various vaccines are safe, then I have to be able to sue the manufacturer when it hurts me.

       Vaccines are the only product with a liability exemption. Make them liable like EVERY OTHER PRODUCT and then we can’ talk.
21. Borson February 16, 2026 at 3:07 pm

    Plant-Based Diets and Supplements Reduced COVID-19 Severity and Achieved Zero Mortality in Elderly High-Risk Patients Immunome Research (Paul R)

    This seems to be a predatory journal. The publisher, Longdom Publishing, is listed as “may be predatory” at Beall’s List, and Immunome Research is listed in neither Web of Science’s Master Journal List, nor DOAJ. There is an “Immunome Research” in the National Library of Medicine catalogue (link, but the last issue to be catalogued was back in 2010. (In the meanwhile, the one that published the recent paper has placeholder pages for issues before 2013).

    Of the three editors listed on the front page, I could find no reference to a “Shicheng Yang” associated with North Carolina State University’s Gene Therapy Center. Indeed, I could not find any documentation of such a center at NCSU, though there was one at UNC-Chapel Hill before it was renamed to “Center for Molecular Medicine” in recent years. Yehuda Shoenfeld’s Wikipedia page does not mention Immunome Research, even though it lists several other editor positions. Similarly, Polly Matzinger’s Wiki page does not mention the journal and it is my understanding that it would be exceedingly unusual for an employee at NIH to take on editor positions due to civil service rules (to avoid impression that the journal was officially approved).

    Most damningly, the Editorial Board page has not changed since the first version archived by Wayback Machine in 2019. That’s not a thing that happens in real life.

    The lack of peer review is important because no attentive reviewer would have let such a study through. The plant based diet group was drawn from those who, at the time of their infection, were existing patients at the cardiology clinic, whose cardiac conditions were mostly under control. The regular diet group was drawn from patients who had a COVID-19 infection when they were first referred to the clinic (which means their cardiac conditions were uncontrolled, otherwise the referral wouldn’t have been made). The difference between controlled and uncontrolled heart conditions seems to be a much more likely explanation of the difference in outcomes than a dietary intervention that started when the patients were already infected.
    1. Borson February 16, 2026 at 3:49 pm

       On closer reading, the existing patient had to have followed the plant based diet (PBD) for at least 3 months to be enrolled included in the PBD group, so the difference in diet did not start during the study. Sorry, explicitly requiring pre-existing differences between treatment groups broke my brain a little – you usually want to minimize this kind of differences.

       On the other hand, “Participants who…could not consistently follow through with our diet intervention and supplementation during their illness were excluded from the study”. So if a client had been on the plant based diet for 3+ months, got COVID-19, was enrolled in the study, and then got too sick to stick to the diet at some point during the course of their illness, they would be dropped from the study. That surely wouldn’t bias the results!

       (By the way, this is a study termination condition, not an exclusion criteria. Exclusion criteria need to be applied before the intervention begins).
    2. marku52 February 16, 2026 at 4:06 pm

       thank you . Excellent debunk.
22. Kouros February 16, 2026 at 4:25 pm

    The article by Larry Johnson
    https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/p/listen-to-what-the-russians-are-saying

    I tried to comment on the article itself but it is only for paid subscribers. Wanted to provide him with a correction. The Novorossyia map that he circulates and was likely produced by Moscow is incorrect. The extension of Odessa Oblast under R of Moldova was never Novorossyia. That part historically is known as Budjak and for the past 700 years was mostly under the Principality of Moldova and the Kingdom of Romania. When Soviets took what it is now R of Moldova after WWII, they ripped that southern part from RSS Moldoveneasca and gave it to Ukraine. The Danube River Mouth and that Black Sea coast shall stay under the Slavs!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budjak
    1. AG February 16, 2026 at 5:57 pm

       did you try comment here?
       https://sonar21.com/listen-to-what-the-russians-are-saying-about-novorossiya/
23. Jason Boxman February 16, 2026 at 5:32 pm

    News from LLM trash land

    OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger joining OpenAI, Altman says (CNBC)

    Sam Altman said in a post on X that OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI and that the open source AI tool will “live in a foundation” inside the company.

    AI agents such as OpenClaw have surged in popularity recently for their ability to automate tasks, including managing email and using online services.

    “We expect this will quickly become core to our product offerings,” Altman wrote.

    What’s actually happening

    Anyone actually using Openclaw? (reddit)

    Choice comments

    Yeah, I am also pretty deep in the community and nobody I know is still messing with it. The few who have checked it out, think its garbage. Was just another weekend whim. Star it and never go back.

    The virility of the marketing was so obviously fake. The second anyone puts scrutiny on its technical merits it falls apart. I don’t care that it was vibe coded, but it was built incredibly sloppy.

    Absolutely faked. This is just a starter kit for bot farms which is probably why OpenAI went for it.

    and

    I actually installed and tried it on my macbook but it nowhere near as special as peopel make it up to be. Just connects a whole lot of APIs and MCP servers and that’s kind of it, does nothing new, just a compilation of what was possible. For me it feels like an exageration of it’s capabilities but some people might see it different, i’m yet to see these people buy who knows

    vibe coded itself?

    actually looked at source code. And correct me if I am wrong all of it is just to connect to other engines and talk to them. There is no big substance in the whole thing. Also listened to Lex interview with creator – no substance there too. Absence of security is remarkable. Number of NPM dependencies (1200+) is remarkable too.

    IMHO Claude and Codex did all the real work, OpenClaw exposed it in the open in most broken way. Sigh

    OpenAI is just flailing about for a purpose while lighting as much cash on fire as humanly possible. It’s the WeWork of this age.

    and damningly

    Just played with it quite a bit today. It’s kind of nuts and makes absolutely no sense. You can automate things but like, anything that you can possibly do deterministically you have an obligation to do, because the way it burns tokens you’re lighting money on fire. So you have to get it to write scripts (or do-it-yourself …) to perform the automations that you want, and honestly the vast majority of automation that we all want can be done deterministically anyways. If there are LLM-specific tasks that you need it to do, well again you’re super heavily incentivized to do as much as you can deterministically and then use the LLM for the bare minimum to minimize token usage.
24. Acacia February 16, 2026 at 7:53 pm

    Re: Japan, Politics, and AI

    One oddity of the recent Japanese election was the extremely strong showing of a quasi-unknown party named “Team Mirai”, which took the #2 place in many parts of Tokyo. Led by a putative wunderkind, 35 y/o Asano Takahiro, one of their important positions is to use AI for everything. The following article is pretty good at decoding what this entails:

    Whose Voices Does Team Mirai Hear?—The Divergence with Audrey Tang
    https://okadaasa.theletter.jp/posts/5c5f5c60-9c33-4311-832b-c78cc34efcd8

    When technology aims to “hear everyone’s voice,” design philosophy can determine the flow of power. The reality of Team Mirai, Audrey Tang, and Plurality.

    Team Mirai references “Plurality” as a key guiding principle. This is a social philosophy, proposed by Taiwan’s first Minister of Digital Development Audrey Tang and economist Glenn Weyl, that uses digital technology to expand democracy. In October 2025, Takahiro Asano invited Tang as an online lecturer for a cross-party study session. Citizens edit the manifesto on GitHub, and opinions are visualized through Broad Listening. Technology changes politics.

    Looking only at the signs, they appear to be heading in the same direction.

    But even using the same tools, if the design philosophy is reversed, something entirely different emerges.

    Not Tech-Right, But

    First, let’s clarify the premise. Team Mirai is not “Tech-Right.”

    Tech-Right is a movement combining absolute faith in technology with right-wing political views. In his 2023 essay “The Techno-Optimist’s Manifesto,” venture capitalist Marc Andreessen repeated “We believe” 113 times, citing accelerationism’s father Nick Land and Italian Futurist poet F.T. Marinetti as “patron saints”. Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel publicly declared that “democracy and freedom are incompatible,” invested in a plan to build an artificial island at sea to escape the laws of existing nations, and pushed JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate in the Trump administration. Whether it’s circumventing democracy with technology or seizing political power itself, the desire to avoid being bound by rules determined by elections remains consistent, even if the means change. Historian Suzanne Schneider applied the concept of “techno-feudalism” proposed by Yanis Varoufakis and others to this trend. It is no longer “freedom from government” but “the seizure and dismantling of the democratic state.”

    Team Mirai’s intellectual reference point lies elsewhere. Anno’s science fiction critically depicts AI authoritarianism. Furthermore, they advocate for a sandbox approach—testing new technologies under limited regional conditions rather than complete deregulation. The GitHub Manifesto garnered 8,559 pull requests during the House of Councillors election period. It aims to expand democracy, not circumvent it—at least superficially.

    However, its support for the supplementary budget included opposing consumption tax cuts, raising the elderly’s medical copayment to 30%, setting a target to operate over 25 nuclear reactors, and increasing defense spending. Its economic stance leans strongly right-wing. While not tech-right ideology, some policies overlap with tech-right views.

    The concept of the Extreme Centre
    When considering Team Mirai, the key point to grasp is not Tech Right but rather the concept of the Extreme Centre.

    Pakistani-British writer and activist Tariq Ali argued in The Extreme Centre (2015) that mainstream politics since 1989 has converged into a “competition over how well one can meet the needs of the market”. Tony Blair’s “Third Way” epitomized this shift. Left-wing parties embraced neoliberalism’s core premises, adopting “What matters is what works” as their mantra and prioritizing efficiency over ideology. The left-right divide faded, ensuring identical economic policies regardless of which side won.

    In September 2025, the book Extreme Center, edited by sociologists Takashi Sakai and Yudai Yamashita, was published by Ibunsha. Its cover blurb read: “The Middle Ground Prepares the Ground for Fascism.” This book is significant because it demonstrates that the “extreme center” is not an “imported concept” for Japan. Editor Sakai states the reason this concept remained unknown in Japan for so long is “not because it didn’t apply, but precisely because it applied excessively”. It’s like not noticing the air exists.
    Sakai’s key point is this: After the dissolution of the Japanese Socialist Party in 1996, the horizon of possibility that “another world is possible” vanished in Japan. Yet the country continues to call itself “centrist.” Clinging to values or ideals became itself derided, and an atmosphere prevailed where one couldn’t speak without the preface “neither right nor left” or “without ideological bias.” Sakai calls this the “Excen syntax”.

    Team Mirai’s slogan “Solutions over confrontation” is the technological version of this “eccentric syntax.” “We speak with data and facts, not emotion” is a variant of Blair’s “What matters is what works,” while Yasuno’s “We don’t want Plan A or Plan B; we want to find Plan C” follows the syntax of “Neither right nor left, but data.”

    […]
25. AG February 16, 2026 at 8:44 pm

    fun & games

    Charlie Rose and Donald Trump in 1992
    55 min.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhqR11zfFEs
26. Jason Boxman February 16, 2026 at 10:44 pm

    US increases military pressure on Iran ahead of high-stakes talks (CNN)

    The US military is continuing a significant buildup of air and naval assets in the Middle East ahead of planned talks with Iran in Geneva on Tuesday. The pieces are being moved into place both to intimidate Tehran and to have options to strike inside the country should negotiations over its nuclear program fail, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

    US Air Force assets based in the UK, including refueling tankers and fighter jets, are being repositioned closer to the Middle East, according to sources familiar with the movements.

    The US is also continuing to flow air defense systems to the region, according to a US official, and several US military units deployed in the region that were expected to rotate out in the coming weeks have had their orders extended, said one source familiar with the matter. Dozens of US military cargo planes have transported equipment from the US to Jordan, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks, according to flight-tracking data.

    On Friday evening, multiple fighter aircraft were also given diplomatic clearance to enter Jordanian airspace, according to open-source air traffic communications. Satellite images show 12 US F-15 attack planes have been positioned at Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base since January 25.

    More broadly, open-source flight data reveals there have been over 250 US cargo flights into the region.

    How long can those rotations be extended? How long can this equipment remain positioned and unused? Zero hour is approaching.
27. raspberry jam February 17, 2026 at 6:29 am

    Russia, China, Iran deploy ships for joint exercises in Strait of Hormuz | Anadolu

    Very dry, lacking details. Includes some comments from Patrushev made earlier this week to Argumenti I Fakty. Compare to:

    Iranian Naval Drill in the Strait of Hormuz Showcases New Missile and Drone Capabilities | Wana Iran

    Quotes:

    Missile Units Test Advanced Systems
    Missile units participating in the drill deployed the latest missile systems and combat tactics under simulated electronic warfare conditions. According to officials, cruise missiles were launched simultaneously from coastal and maritime platforms toward designated targets. These systems reportedly feature anti-electronic warfare capabilities and artificial-intelligence-based guidance designed to counter potential interference.

    Deployment of New Iranian Military Drones
    The exercise also featured the deployment of new Iranian drones reportedly capable of engaging both aerial and naval targets. Officials described these drones as among Iran’s latest strategic military assets and said they are available in significant numbers within IRGC naval units, though their names and technical specifications remain undisclosed.

    Focus on Independent Island Defense
    A central theme of the exercise is the concept of independent defense of the islands without direct support from mainland Iran. Under this strategy, units stationed on the islands rely on domestically produced weapons systems, long-range missiles, drones, and electronic warfare equipment to defend Iranian territory directly.

    Fasten your seat belts, I think the ride is about to get bumpy…

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