Links 2/8/2026

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33 comments

1. TimH February 8, 2026 at 7:12 am

   If I was China, I would make sure that the US became delicately aware that China had low yield nukes – which is what the article discusses – because they are a deterrent.

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2. Ben Panga February 8, 2026 at 7:21 am

   NSA detected foreign intelligence phone call about a person close to Trump (Guardian)

   Whistle-Blower Report Involved Intelligence About a Trump Contact (NYT via archive.ph)

   I read both stories and I can’t fully understand the significance

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   1. Bugs February 8, 2026 at 10:11 am

      The whistleblower’s lawyer says that Tulsi is stonewalling by not sending the doc to Congress; imho the insinuation is that someone close to Trump is an agent of a foreign government.

      My spidey sense says Dem maneuver to plant a seed for impeachment if they get both houses back. That’s why the Ukraine stuff from impeachment part 1 is in the NYT article as background.

      Of course the government allegedly involved won’t turn out to be the one that we all know really has agents all over the joint but the dastardly Russians.

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3. The Rev Kev February 8, 2026 at 7:44 am

   “China Secretly Testing Nuclear Weapons And Covering Its Tracks, U.S. Alleges (Updated) ”

   This sounds like the beginning of a long campaign by the US to ‘shape the battlefield’ in a future US-China negotiation on its growing nuclear arsenal by a stream of accusations. When those negotiations happen, I expect Trump to send Witkoff and Kushner, armed with a fresh supply of cocktail napkins, to negotiate China reducing their nuclear arsenal and allowing US inspections. But since China will also demand that the US reduce its nuclear arsenal and allow Chinese inspectors into the US, nothing will come of these talks.

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   1. Tom Stone February 8, 2026 at 9:38 am

      I think of him as “Twitkof” because he is so spectacularly unfit for his position.

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4. Wukchumni February 8, 2026 at 8:10 am

   Requiem For a Heavy Wait…

   Grave goods are often an indicator of how important that person was in 248 BC when interred. The more bling the more status.

   I’d hesitate to think of what they’d make out of a pair of Saint Laurent stiletto roller skates with arched skeletal feet in them, in 4298.

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   1. The Rev Kev February 8, 2026 at 9:02 am

      They would do what all good archaeologist do when they come across something weird like this – they would classify it as ‘ritualistic’ and be done with it.

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      1. Michael Fiorillo February 8, 2026 at 9:39 am

         And why not? It’s not hard to explain it as a manifestation of Mammon’s grace, provided in exchange for faithful service…

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   2. Lefty Godot February 8, 2026 at 10:32 am

      “Here’s another one of those graves for mentally defectives. They really cared for those unfortunates!”

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5. Louis Fyne February 8, 2026 at 8:18 am

   under the radar….Trump expanding beef imports into the US, which isn’t the “win” that the White House things it is.

   Are these people retarded, or openly helping Big Ag at the expense of ordinary peeps, you decide. Probably both.

   a thread explaining it…

   https://x.com/musharbash_b/status/2020310891254706515

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   1. MicaT February 8, 2026 at 10:00 am

      That all may be true, and the Dems never did anything about the USDA which has been so responsible due to excessive regulations on smaller regional slaughter houses that it forced them out of business and could be argued were actively involved in the destruction of the smaller houses. It’s been incredibly destructive to the smaller ranchers all over the country. In California, it forced many ranchers out of business due to the expensive of long distance shipping and lack of competition due to monopoly control.

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   2. tegnost February 8, 2026 at 10:39 am

      From argh and tina of course…those hedgies have to eat after all. Bessent was a soybean Farmer, now he has switched to Rancher. salt of the Earth and all. Retarded is far too kind a description for malevolence at scale.

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6. DJG, Reality Czar February 8, 2026 at 8:21 am

   The NYT Too Little Too late, again. The highest court in the land has gone rogue. By Corbin Trent.

   As Richard Kline noted in his analysis in that stalwart essay stored here at Naked Capitalism, Progressively Losing (search the site’s archive): “Liberals are great believers in ‘the law,’ and happy enough to live and let live until they are in a pinch or have to give up something for the greater good—at which point they scream for a cop or start in on how ‘we’ can’t afford X. Liberalism isn’t primarily a moral position but a practical attachment to personal liberty and property. If one abandons that allowance for others, one is soon threatened as well since power unchecked makes few fine distinctions, so it’s a ‘hang together and don’t rock the boat’ perspective rather than one of commitment.”

   This reasoning is why Trent’s article is good to read as a trail of horrors but not good to read as a policy prescription.

   In short, the U.S. Supreme Court exists to protect property (note the use of that word in quote directly above). The Court protected slavery. The Court gave the US of A the Plessy v Ferguson decision. The Court dismantled the First New Deal.

   So getting rid of Clarence “Big Bribes” Thomas and Sammy “Resentments of Opus Dei” Alito won’t amount to much. The Court has to be recomposed — rethought, started over from scratch.

   Living as I do in the Undisclosed Region, where we are in a constant ferment (luckily, one can easily get some delicious grissini), I will propose Italy’s organization to you: “The Constitutional Court is composed of 15 judges for the term of service of nine years: 5 appointed by the President of Italy, 5 elected by the Parliament of Italy and 5 elected by the ordinary and administrative supreme courts.” [From Wikipedia] Note the term limits. Judges serve a nine-year term, which cannot be renewed. Every three years, they elect a new president of the Court, who can be reelected. [Constitution, article 135]

   Pass the vitello tonato, the bonet, and let justice be done even if the heavens should fall.

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   1. Tom Stone February 8, 2026 at 9:42 am

      “Big Bribes”?
      Harlan Crow bought Thomas with a used book and a Winnebago.
      We have Genocide Joe Biden to thank for keeping the supremes affordable.

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7. vao February 8, 2026 at 8:48 am

   Regarding “How China could rule the humanoid robot industry before it even starts”, I remember a presentation by a leading German specialist in robotics a bit more than 30 years ago.

   He went through an exposition of the state of the art and the current evolution in the field, and reviewed the approaches, as well as research prototypes and commercial products from Europe (with a focus on Germany) and the USA on the one side, and Japan on the other.

   Europe and especially the USA were very keen on general-purpose 6+-degrees of freedom articulated robotic arms with complex appendages that attempted to recreate the versatility and dexterity of human hands, and also on multi-legged robots. In contrast, the Japanese focused on specialized robots such as welders in automobile manufacturing plants. He showed us photos of refrigerator-sized roomba-lookalikes used in civil engineering to polish and clean floor slabs automatically in construction sites, and of various other narrow-purpose robots.

   His contention was that progress would be achieved by following the Japanese way: this would result in actually usable products instead of complex, fragile and expensive prototypes unsuited for heavy-duty applications. General-purpose, human/animal-like robots hand were facing sheer, long-term technical difficulties (e.g. the problem of having a robotic hand equivalent to a human one remains unsolved).

   Nowadays there are plenty of 6+-degrees of freedom articulated robotic arms used in manufacturing, but they still rely on specialized appendages for a limited range of activities. Boston Dynamics publishes plenty of videos of robotic quadrupeds sauntering around, and those rumba-dancing and kata-demonstrating Chinese humanoid robots are of course impressive — but what concrete requirements do they actually fulfil? To me, they seem useful as R&D platforms to push technology to its limits and learn what works and what not, but how would those complex (and I suspect maintenance-heavy) pieces of machinery be productively used in real life?

   Yes, military applications have been advanced as the use-case for those robots. But while everybody is trying to figure out how to mobilize them for the next war, the Russians have already put in use unassuming, stocky little wheeled or tracked robots to transport supplies and wounded on the battlefield — and increasingly to advance on enemy positions and then spray them with machine-gun fire — all the while contending with mines and drones.

   Nowadays, the Japanese (FANUC, Yaskawa) lead the field with some German/Germanic area companies (ABB, KUKA). Is the enthusiasm or hype about these AI-controlled humanoid robots leading developments in the USA and China astray?

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   1. ilsm February 8, 2026 at 10:11 am

      Good rundown, thanks.

      US Army has for several years prototype of a remotely operated machine gun, iI do not recall the motivator. I imagine they have done more R&D.

      US robotic companies have prototyped tracked and wheeled robot conveyors.

      I am out of the business and so do not know where US Army is going on field robotics. Wheels and tracks are good; there may be a small set of terrain needing robotic mules with legs.

      Not sure what use cases are being solved.

      Thanks.

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   2. rob February 8, 2026 at 10:36 am

      I doesn’t seem like you can put the USA and china together in ANY basket.
      After watching the videos of chinese manufacturing plants on kevin Walmsey’s Inside china business, using these task specific robots alongside human workers making vast volumes of things more efficiently than all the pie in the sky marketing claims of Western tech wannabe’s…. It doesn’t seem like the west is even in the running. Sure the guy who won the race and the last one across the finish line both ran the same course, but they do not share the same spotlight.
      As far as war, or competition, or the future…. the US is so far behind, while at the same time so handicapped by the elite driven policies that are really just protectionism for their friends/families/cronies…. that the US has already lost. They just haven’t noticed yet.
      Like a judo maneuver, when the person who is about to be thrown on the ground, is actually over the center of gravity of the one doing the throwing… they are still thinking they can pull out of this… but really they can’t. I see the chinese as executing what they need to, while I see the west thinking they are still in control… because they aren’t really prepared to lose. But lose they will.

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8. The Rev Kev February 8, 2026 at 8:59 am

   ‘HustleBitch
   @HustleBitch_
   🚨 AMERICAN WOMAN TESTS CHINA’S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM – NO APPOINTMENT. NO INSURANCE. $12 TOTAL. OUT IN 19 MINUTES.’

   I would recommend reading the comments as they are all over the place and some of them are very triggered by what this woman shows-

   https://xcancel.com/HustleBitch_/status/2019298457693937715

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   1. .human February 8, 2026 at 9:47 am

      My daughter was in a Southeast Asian hospital some years ago after using her epi-pen (shellfish allergy).

      She wasn’t allowed to leave until they found her a replacement. Total cost for overnight stay and new pen, about $12.

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   2. tegnost February 8, 2026 at 10:00 am

      I’m calling a lot of those bots…along with being number crunchers incapable of understanding bots don’t need medical care

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   3. Jeremy Grimm February 8, 2026 at 10:03 am

      The range in the comments is stunning. The comments were so brief it was difficult to tell which comments came from trolls. If the comments are even somewhat typical of u.s. public opinion, the u.s. has a serious problem with the polarization of public opinions. The coming election should prove ‘interesting’.

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   4. Afro February 8, 2026 at 10:27 am

      I’m seeing a whole lot of cope in the replies, claims this woman wasn’t actually sick, that she must have gotten bad care, etc.

      My own (cope) is that younger and future American generations may be better.

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   5. EnigmaWrappedInBacon February 8, 2026 at 10:41 am

      Thank you for mentioning the comments. I skipped them after seeing the video. There will always be people who will look at a video like this through a strong ideological lens. For them everything in China is the CCP and to approve of anything in China is tantamount to endorsing communism. But most people, including most Americans, are practically minded. They will notice the technology, that some of the posted signs were translated into English, and most of all the cost and efficiency. These kind of videos, including those that show Chinese electric vehicles, can have a real impact over time. For many it will lead them to ask why don’t we have something like that here.

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9. Wukchumni February 8, 2026 at 9:19 am

   I saw a wherewithal wolf with an underage menu in his hand
   Walking on the beach in the rain
   He was looking for the place called Little St James
   Gonna get a big dish, in a forbidden vein

   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   Ah-hoo
   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   Ah-hoo

   You hear him howlin’ around your kitchen door
   You better not let him in
   Little lady got eaten late last night
   Wherewithal wolves of Epstein again

   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   Ah-hoo
   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   Ah-hoo, huh

   He’s the heavy-handed gent who ran amok by chance
   Lately he’s been overheard in Zorro Ranch
   You better stay away from him, he’ll hang himself in his cell, Jim
   Huh, I’d like to meet his jailer

   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   Ah-hoo
   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   Ah-hoo

   Well, I saw Donald Quixote walkin’ with Jeffrey
   Doin’ the wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   I saw Sancho Panza walkin’ with Jeffrey, uh
   Doin’ the wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   I saw a wherewithal wolf drinkin’ a piña colada mocktail at Trader Vic’s
   And his hair was perfect

   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein
   Huh, draw blood
   Ah-hoo, wherewithal wolves of Epstein

   Werewolves of London, by Warren Zevon

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6M89iDabwM&list=RDc6M89iDabwM

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10. farmboy February 8, 2026 at 9:24 am

    China Science
    @ChinaScience
    China has launched its first open-source, vertical large language model (LLM) dedicated to the general agricultural sector, marking a significant breakthrough in foundational AI model research and its applications for agriculture in the country.
    The model, Sinong, which is named after the ancient Chinese officials overseeing agriculture and finance, integrates content from nearly 9,000 books, over 240,000 academic papers, approximately 20,000 policy documents and standards, and extensive web-based knowledge.
    Sinong is now fully open-sourced on platforms like ModelScope and GitHub.
    5:00 PM · Jan 21, 2026
    ·
    429.5K
    Views

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11. Hepativore February 8, 2026 at 9:28 am

    Of course the Democrats won’t do anything to stop ICE, as most of them either agree with their methods or don’t care and would like to just sit back and fundraise off of the discontent.

    The fact that the Democrats voted overwhelmingly to keep funding the organization in bipartisan agreement says it all.

    I cannot think of a more useless political organization than the modern-day DNC.

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12. TomDority February 8, 2026 at 9:31 am

    If AI does to white-collar work what globalization did to blue-collar, we need to confront that directly. Not with abstractions about ‘the jobs of tomorrow,’ but with a credible plan for broad participation in the gains.

    Extreme Inequality Presages The Revolt Against It – Noema
    “This is the test: Whether capitalism can evolve to turn more people into owners of growth — instead of spectators watching it happen.”

    “Extreme Begets Extreme
    The lesson from history is that the more extreme and long-lasting the corrosive concentration of wealth in any society, the more extreme the reactive remedy. In that situation, the well-warranted quest for fairness can become counterproductive if it not only constrains the rich but also shrinks the pie, rather than enlarges it so that wealth can be shared more broadly.”

    So, now, after years of slathering loopholes and tax breaks and all the other illusions of actual real investment in the tangible economy. All the breaks that allowed the cost of living to skyrocket by inflating the basic nessecities of living through speculative non-productive “investments” designed to privatize all and produce no-real value or wealth……They worry now that the “well-warranted quest for fairness can become counterproductive if it not only constrains the rich but also shrinks the pie” and after all this time they compare that to what has already happened to the non-rich..In the rich-folks eyes the non-rich are the non-producers…the lazy, the non-wealth producers instead of the rich being the slackers and leaches….so, of course they offer something that they will game, deflate and inflate so as to steal every bit into their greedy hands… a new three card monty…. a new gamble…as lone as you are a qualified voter as defined by their rules no doubt.. so: ,
    every adult American — on the condition that they actively vote in elections — would receive a synthetic security, essentially an account indexed across the stock market, that must be vested for at least 20 years to allow the compounded returns to grow. – and of course this synthetic security will be used by the rich to inflate assets at a higher compounded rate than the compounded returns will grow. By twenty years the rich will have scalped 2 times the money that the non-rich will recieve with the synthetic security and this return will be chewed into negative territory by the increased cost of living.
    That sound like the plan by the rich and for the rich to me.

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    1. tegnost February 8, 2026 at 10:31 am

       I didn’t expect an abundance pitch but that’s where we are I guess

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13. farmboy February 8, 2026 at 9:40 am

    Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them.
    Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information.
    Here’s a list of sites you may have never heard of!
    http://refseek.com – Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
    http://worldcat.org – a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
    https://link.springer.com – access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
    http://bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
    http://repec.org – volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
    http://science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
    http://base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free
    https://ecosia.org
    Ecosia is a not-for-profit tech company that plants and protects trees. By dedicating 100% of its profits to the planet, Ecosia has planted over 214,229,374 million trees since its founding in December 2009
    http://Yandex.com
    Yandex is a technology company that builds intelligent products and services powered by machine learning. Our goal is to help consumers and businesses better navigate the online and offline world. Since 1997, we have delivered world-class, locally relevant search and information services.
    http://Gutenberg.org
    Project Gutenberg is a library of over 75,000 free eBooks
    http://Duckduckgo.com
    “Protection. Privacy. Peace of mind. Get our browser on all your devices.
    Search and browse with the DuckDuckGo browser for more protection. Unlike Chrome and other browsers, we don’t track you.”
    http://Presearch.io
    Presearch is a community-powered, decentralized search engine that provides better results while protecting your privacy and rewarding you when you search.
    http://Ebscohost.com
    Reliable information for all kinds of research
    http://Startpage.com
    Startpage is a global privacy technology company built around the principle of always putting privacy first. Our suite of easy-to-use privacy products helps anyone around the world to protect their personal data online.
    from Christopher Seymore
    

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    1. Jeremy Grimm February 8, 2026 at 10:12 am

       Thank you for providing the list of links in your comment above. I grabbed them and saved them for future use.

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14. The Rev Kev February 8, 2026 at 9:51 am

    “Entitled: UK Monarchy, national security at risk amid Andrew’s ties to sex trafficking & shady deals”

    This article appears in France 24 but the Epstein black hole is starting to drag in in figures from the French Establishment as well. Jack Lang, a veteran French politician who has served as culture and education minister and is now the president of the Arab World Institute, is under investigation for money laundering and who was connected with Epstein-

    https://www.rt.com/news/632164-head-french-institute-resigns-epstein/

    This is starting to sound like a European network of fraud & financial crime with Epstein at the heart of it all. You have figures from the UK, France, Germany and Norway that have been implicated with Epstein and the list keeps on getting longer.

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15. tegnost February 8, 2026 at 10:02 am

    Noema…
    A good description of the state of affairs but a too complicated prescription to alleviate it…

    The aim is not so much to redistribute the accumulated wealth of billionaires as to widely distribute the wealth created through productivity gains of the AI economy in the first place, which, after all, are generated by exploiting the information of the general populace.

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16. tegnost February 8, 2026 at 10:13 am

    Common Dreams

    Over the next two weeks, Democrats will have an opportunity to demand concessions from their GOP counterparts and President Trump as they wrangle over future appropriations for the Department of Homeland Security.

    spoiler alert…they won’t.

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