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Links 3/14/2026

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THE ANCIENT ENGINE: NASA Just Dated 3I/ATLAS to Before the Sun Existed Sentinel Briefing (Chuck L)

Climate/Environment

A sobering preview’: extreme heat now affects one in three people globally, study finds Guardian

Water crisis looms for cities as drought and growth collide Earth.com

Air pollution harms brain health – existing standards may fall short University of Birmingham

Centuries of net-negative emissions are required to secure a safe climate future, two studies suggest PhysOrg

Arctic’s ‘keystone’ fish faces collapse as melting ice floods ocean with light Oceanographic Magazine

Super El Niño could bring severe drought to ASEAN and push 2027 to record heat Asia News. Nothing is evenly distributed these days. We are in the hottest two months of the year here. I have yet to run air con. It was a bit rainy two days running, also not normal before rainy season.

China?

China Consumption Start to Year Seen as Worst Ever Outside Covid Bloomberg

China beats US, Japan in carbon-fibre arms race to create world’s first T1200 factory South China Morning Post

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia shuts offices, limits travel as oil crisis deepens Aljazeera

Africa

Tigray Residents Flee as Fragile Peace Crumbles Under Pressure Streamline

Sudan shows how the nature of war is changing – and it’s a death trap for civilians Sky

25 people killed in militia attack in eastern DR Congo Anadolu Agency

South of the Border

Drug trafficker Noboa kneels before Trump and attacks Cuba Rebelion (Micael T)

Ecuador prepares for attack on ‘criminal economy’ with Trump backing Aljazeera

European Disunion

Debt-burdened Europe has fewer options to buffer energy shock Reuters

Demonstrations against conscription: €20 fines for students in Stuttgart – Where is the backbone of the schools? Nackdenkseiten via machine translation. Micael T: NATO wants war with Russia because NATO kills for freedom and democracy!

Old Blighty

Lenders warn collapsed UK ‘shadow bank’ has £1.3bn hole Telegraph

London homes ‘overheating due to climate change BBC

Andrew and Peter Mandelson pictured in bathrobes with Jeffrey Epstein Guardian (Kevin W)

Israel v. The Resistance

Afghanistan-Pakistan

Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of air attacks on homes in Kabul, Kandahar Aljazeera

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine’s attacks on Turkish Stream are terrorizing the global market Vzglyad via machine translation (guurst)

Can Ukraine’s war-torn wheatfields be cleansed? BBC

The Baltic States Are More Important For Ukraine Than Most Might Realize Andrew Korybko

Imperial Collapse Watch

Hedges Report: The Trillion Dollar War Machine Consortium News (Robin K)

AI for war: The dispute between the Pentagon and an AI company sheds light on the new military technology policy Nachdenkseiten via machine translation.

Drones Are Weapons Of The Weak #3: The Americas Ian Welsh (Micael T)

Trump 2.0

Judge blocks DOJ’s criminal probe of Federal Reserve, blasting it as political NPR (Kevin W)

Trump threatens EU and China with new tariffs Telegraph

Trump: Iran war will end when I ‘feel it in my bones’ Politico (Kevin W)

The Iran War: Trump’s Defining Legacy /Robert Barnes & Lt Col Daniel Davis YouTube. I am not a Barnes fan, but this is terrific.

Immigration

‘I am 5 years old. I want go home”: Children’s letters expose nine months of torture at Texas immigrant concentration camp WSWS (Micael T)

L’affaire Epstein

Economy

Iran War: Energy Shock Triggers Global Fertiliser Crisis WION

Fuel shortages bring queues, protests around the world Aljazeera

Faced with rising electricity prices, Americans are stealthily adding DIY solar systems. And they aren’t telling utilities CNN (Kevin W)

Federal Reserve to loosen capital requirements for big US banks Federal Reserve

Antitrust

Slack Exchange Between LIVE NATION Employees Reveals Them Bragging About Fans Paying Jacked-Up Fees: “These People Are So Stupid” Metal Injection

AI

First look at US Military’s AI system of Project Maven BitChute (Kevin W)

Even Silicon Valley Says that AI Is a Bubble Atlantic

Class Warfare

Advocates Demand Answers as State Prisons Face Scrutiny After Deaths THE CITY

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (guurst):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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66 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Trump’s Iran campaign is already sputtering because Washington’s entire arsenal runs on Chinese minerals, SCMP sources warn, giving Beijing direct leverage to decide how long the bombing can actually last before Trump meets Xi.’

    Now this I do not understand. It has been obvious that huge quantities of refined earths from China may never happen again. And yet the Trump regime has been burning up weapons systems that need refined earths like they are going out of style. How are those weapons going to be replaced without those rare earths? By the time Trump goes to see Xi in a fortnight’s time he is going to be in a very poor position and it may be that Xi will have all the cards. Will Trump just demand that Xi start delivering refined earths again – or else colossal tariffs. Or will he offer to swap refined earths for Taiwan? With Trump you never know what is going to come out of his mouth. Only that you should not trust what he says.

    1. Christopher Fay

      Well, with the abundance doctrine why not both? Colossal tariffs and delivering Taiwan into China’s lap?

    2. rob

      What you are missing is that this is “TRUMP”S PLAN”. His monumental effort to have the nobel peace prize bestowed upon him ; in his divine grace.
      He is single handedly with help from his “SS”( the Suicide Suppositories who proclaim his greatness)
      Uniting the world. Russia,China, Iran, And soon all the rest who can remain sane
      He is ending the US ability to wage war, as well as NATO
      He is bringing about the end of the state of israel( may we soon be able to say” I remember when israel existed)
      He is destroying all the fairy tales told by patriarchies, democracies, political parties, law enforcement, academia, market mavens, legal beagles, etc. All those people who have control of all societies because they claim they are stewards of 400 years of liberal ideals since the treaty of Westphalia, and thousands of years of moral admonishment, are shown to be frauds.
      He alone has laid bare the hollowness of the establishment, in all of its house organs.
      We see the real state of the world. We see who our leaders really are. We see what our religions actually stand for. we see the nature of the people around us. we see the reality of what the police and law enforcement is actually doing.
      Trump is finishing up the job of the last 25 years, to destroy the world…. to save it.
      What a great job they are doing. The trump has shown all the people of the world, that we will need to get past our paradigms, and move forward.
      Boy, it will be fun, to pick up all the pieces and remake the world in the image that we actually want/need. All of this, over 5 thousand years of actual history, will enable the future leaders and followers to be a bit more realistic. Yippee!

      1. JP

        In reality the socio-economic fabric is more complicated. The underlying plumbing has integrated all that you decry into the vast support structure, the glue that holds together all the benefits that support our overpopulated, resource dependent global society. The parasitical elements are an inevitable feature. You will begin to understand when the supply chain freezes up like covid was just a dry run. When things stop moving and people get hungry they do not act in society’s interests. The enlightenment will be only a brief glimpse. They only band together to defend or conquer a common enemy. Out of chaos will eventually arise a rebuilt structure but it will be the same old construct of human nature. You will not get the utopia you want from destroying the utopia you got.

      2. geoff

        All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.

      3. Bakes

        He is single handedly with help from his “SS”( the Suicide Suppositories who proclaim his greatness)

        Oh my! I wonder how many of us are old enough to appreciate the Firesign Theater reference!

    3. Ben Panga

      >Now this I do not understand

      Rev, I believe you’re making the mistake of thinking Trump has any sane strategy at all. His only FP tool’s are: threaten/lie/be smarmy , which he alternates.

      The man is an intellectual void.

      >Trump goes to see Xi in a fortnight’s time he is going to be in a very poor position and it may be that Xi will have all the cards

      I believe he is too stupid to realise that he is not the Commander of an overwhelming dominant force. Witness his confusion and perplexity when Iran did not “capitulate”.

      He will use a combination of the same 3 techniques with the Chinese and it will get him nowhere. He does not realise (and is perhaps psychologically incapable of realising) that he’s holding a weaker hand.

      The Chinese are playing Go; Trump is struggling to understand TicTacToe (and cheat at it).

      I’ve had Golden Retrievers with more sophisticated strategic thinking.

      1. The Rev Kev

        I have no doubt that Trump has no strategy. He did have for the first day or two and expected the Iranians to capitulate. Instead they started slamming US bases left, right and center while shutting down the Strait of Hormuz. So it seems that every other day that he tries a new stunt to see if it will change things like the attack on Kharg Island. He is faced with a foe that will not quit but will defy him and for Trump, coming up against a foe that refuses to be bullied is something that he has a great deal of difficulty accepting. Just another nepo baby frustrated in not getting his way as usual.

        1. Ben Panga

          I grew up with a bullying delusional narcissist and have also had professional reasons to learn plenty about them.

          The need to remain (in their own minds) like a winner/strong/loved etc is the defining trait. It supercedes all other motivations. Threats to this illusion are terrifying to them, and they will do anything to avoid it. It’s literally more frightening than death. Preservation of the ego’s fragile delusion is everything.

          When reality finally humiliates them, when the mania runs out of options, hiding and deep depression happen.

          I worry that, ex a coup, Trump will be in a situation where he sees the choice as between 1) very public humiliation 2) nukes. Even if no nukes, the public failure/humiliation that is building will cause him to lash out in very erratic ways.

          There’s a story that always stuck with me from Trump’s childhood about his younger brother Robert (who Trump constantly tormented) dumping a bowl of mash-potato on Donald’s head during a family meal. Trump by this time had already been conditioned by his sociopathic father never to be weak, and always be a killer. Trump was the chosen child and he watched as brother Fred was often humiliated by father Fred.

          Until one day Trump was the one to be humiliated.

          Per Mary Trump (via her substack):

          By this time, Donald was a pro at teasing and belittling his little brother and, as was often the case, Robert started crying hysterically and screaming for Donald to stop. Donald, of course, wouldn’t and nobody could get him to—especially not my grandmother for whom, even then, Donald had a fair amount of contempt. He didn’t listen to a word she said, and even telling him to wait until his father came home had no impact on his behavior,

          In the midst of the fighting and yelling and sobbing, my grandmother started setting the table and bringing the food in from the kitchen. As things continued to escalate, my dad, in just a fit of frustration, did the only thing he could think of to do to make Donald stop: He picked up what must have been the quite massive bowl of mashed potatoes that my grandmother had just put on the table and he dumped it on Donald’s head. Robert immediately went quiet and Donald was speechless.

          And, probably worst of all for him, everybody, except Donald, of course, started laughing. They were laughing their heads off, and Donald knew they were laughing at him. It may have been the first time, at least consciously, that Donald felt that awful feeling of humiliation, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t laugh it off because, even then, he wasn’t capable of laughing at himself. I think it some ways, this is the source of his grievance , the source of his always feeling that everything is against him and life is completely unfair—which sounds absurd because among other things, it’s completely untrue.

          The bowl of masked potatoes ended Robert’s suffering, at least that night, but it also set Donald’s into motion. It was the source of his terror of being humiliated. And he developed some very strong armor and defense mechanisms so he’d never feel that way again.

          Also relevant:

          These 7 stories from Mary Trump’s book show Trump’s deep-rooted, strained relationship with his family (Business Insider, not archived)

          Inside the ‘dysfunctional family’ that gave us Trump, according to his niece (Guardian)

          —-
          BP: I work with these kinds of childhood patterns, and help people make sense of them and fix them. I’m really good at it and it’s the one area that I really trust my reads and understanding.

          Trump had a load of conditioning about what “winning” looks like from him his father, but the mashed potato story is key.

          I continue to believe that the way to understand Trump’s actions as an adult, is to see them as efforts to not feel the humiliation he felt that day. It supercedes everything else.

          Currently the Iranians are firing the world’s biggest bowl of mash-potato right at Donald’s face, and the whole world will see it land.

          1. Jason Boxman

            This is the dude where the official white house theme seems to be:

            Daddy’s back

            I fear for the future.

    4. schmoe

      I saw an article yesterday that the US has only expended 10% of its Tomahawk inventory, and given the US could just drop “dumb” bombs given its total air superiority, the notion that critical minerals are at all relevant to ending this conflict is implausible.

          1. The Rev Kev

            Don’t forget that they have a high failure rate. When Trump fired a load of them into Nigeria about Christmas time, about a quarter of them proved to be duds.

            1. vao

              In addition, the Tomahawk is an older type of cruise missile, slower than ballistic ones and therefore easier to shoot down.

              As for using “dumb bombs”, the war in Ukraine has shown that the only way they can be used — barring absolute air supremacy — is by fitting them with those gliding / guiding add-ons the Russians have developed for their stashes of soviet-era gravity bombs. I think the USA also developed such extensions, but has not been deploying them at scale.

              Dropping dumb bombs only works if the enemy has no AA defences at all (as the Russians learned in Ukraine). Even then, those gliding add-ons do not endow gravity bombs with an infinite range: we are talking about less than 100 km for the Russian UMPK. This probably forces airplanes to come uncomfortably close to Iranian medium to long-range AA defences, patchy as they are.

      2. converger

        Ummmm…. ….does the US and Israel have total air superiority over Iranian airspace at this point?

        This is an honest question. I have not seen anything authoritative that says that they do, and my limited understanding is that the attacks on Iranian infrastructure are all coming from stand-off precision munitions instead of dumb bombs, indicating that Iran still has some anti-aircraft defensive capacity.

      3. Al

        I’m not sure about total air superiority. Iran is still taking out drones, the US is bombing mostly western Iran and doesn’t venture to the center or east. Meanwhile Iraqi airspace is also now contested.

        Glide bombs have limited range, those planes need to get pretty close to the border areas.

        1. Jeff H

          I saw a comment on Telegram about 20 min ago referencing an IDF statement of a near shoot down of an F 15 over Iran. It would seem that at best ISR is only making minor probing actions over Iranian airspace an only with older planes.

  2. hemeantwell

    For those pressed for time, the Danny Davis – Barnes interview really takes off around 19 minutes in, after some familiar material re Trump living in a bubble, when Barnes gets into distorted polling methodology designed to exaggerate public support for the war. E.g. “90% of MAGA Republicans support war” because the pollsters use support for the war to define MAGA.

  3. The Rev Kev

    “Demonstrations against conscription: €20 fines for students in Stuttgart – Where is the backbone of the schools?”

    I am reminded of the book “All Quite on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque. He talks about how his teacher encouraged he and his class to enlist as soldiers because of patriotism. But then-

    ‘We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.’

    He also made the point that they ‘were convinced that they were acting for the best—in a way that cost them nothing.’ So will these modern day teachers be joining the Bundeswehr to do their patriotic duty? Yeah, I thought not.

    1. anahuna

      How well that applies to the unholy trio of Starmer, Merz, and Macron, and their presiding Goddess of War, known as Ursula von der Slayin’.

  4. Tom Stone

    I am using the term “Operation AIPAC Fury” when Emailing my Congresscritters and think that popularizing the phrase is a good idea.
    It’s catchy, there’s a lot of truth in it and the one thing our “Betters” hate more than anything else is mockery.
    Embarassing the powerful in the West is the greatest crime you can commit, the UK even invented a new law to punish Craig Murray when he exposed their lies.

    1. albrt

      It’s going to be hard to displace Epstein Fury at this point, but your version makes the point more directly.

      When everything is about Epstein, it’s too easy for the ones who didn’t actually go to the island to think they aren’t part of the Epstein class.

  5. 4paul

    For the Live Nation gouging, I found a transcript, looks like a 5 dpi fax machine scan Exhibit 2 Slack messages

    It’s not as bad as the Grandma Millie phone call with the traders sounding like they were gleefully punishing people in California; here these two seem like bureaucrats taking their mandate to Gouge The Customer as seriously as they can, more Banality of Evil rather than sadistically evil.

    … although on page 1 off the top “i hate the ZBB holds they’re so f—ing stupid” … ZBB assuming is Zach Brown Band, not sure if that is some kind of coded hatred, or bureaucratic hatred for management/tour/agents?

    My perusal makes me think they are totally doing what they are told. Also white collar jobs are all the same LOL.

  7. tegnost

    Happy pi day to those who celebrate

    What goes around, comes around…
    That’s my circular logic for today

  8. The Rev Kev

    “Trump threatens EU and China with new tariffs”

    I read about this earlier today and the Chinese have already told Trump don’t you dare try to do this to us or else. And I think that they mean it. They can see how this war has heavily damaged Trump’s standing along with that of his vaunted military so when he comes for his visit, it will be from a position of weakness. Maybe Xi will gift him a small tube of Gallium to show that there are no hard feelings.

    1. hemeantwell

      Ah, very sorry to hear that.
      I’m afraid Habermas’ legacy will be shaped by his endorsement of Big Europe, Cold War 2 and, as far as I’ve seen, unwillingness to criticize Israel. His earlier work work of a leftish bent –Knowledge and Human Interests, on the public sphere, Legitimation Crisis — shouldn’t be discarded. As I see it, the turning point came when he began to think of Marxism as so burdened by a mechanical teleology that it had to be abandoned. He had his own way of registering the decline of the Left in the 70s and 80s; like many others his discouragement got the better of him and led to unnecessary theoretical closure.

      1. AG

        well put

        I was very critical of him as to the points on actual (geo)politics that you mention. (Gaza being the darkest of examples of his failures!)
        But who among the ivory tower scholars in West Germany since the end of the GDR ever understood those?

        All of which should not eclipse his seminal work on issues of political philosophy and hermeneutics.
        One should always keep in mind what the state of scholarship was back then.
        How society seemed to work then.
        They would not know what we know today.
        Whether they shold have or not is a separate question.

      2. Darthbobber

        He lost me with Between Facts and Norms. I’ll never get that time back. Philosophically it looks to me like he regressed first to Kantian idealism and then supplemented that (at least still an objective idealism), with radical subjective idealism.

        The fact that he became the quasi-official pholosopher of the remnants of German bourgeois liberalism really sums up the collapse of his intellectual project

    2. Bugs

      His debates with Rawls were the last time that I understood where he was going. I thought it might have been very enlightening to have been in a conference to hear him in actual exchange with other philosophers. My philosophy professor in graduate school was a friend of his and saw him as a successor to Heidegger.

      Between Facts and Norms sort of lost my interest half way through. He was looking for a way to systematize the political conversation and protect the polity from harm with the assumptions and rules that are now sadly (I think) gone. His commitment to the EU became a joke at the end. Still, RIP. Thanks for sharing this news.

    1. pjay

      – “The Vandenberg Coalition, formed in 2021 during President Joe Biden’s time in office, advocates for an interventionist foreign policy and increased defense spending…”

      I had to laugh when I read this sentence (though it was a grim, bitter laugh). It is one that has been written hundreds of times over the last *50* years; only the organization, date, and name of the President changes. Even the personnel stays the same – Elliot f**king Abrams, the Zelig of bloodthirsty neocon policymaking for decades! There are countless numbers of these interlocking neocon think-tanks and lobbying groups that permeate the National Security Establishment and both political parties. And Abrams is vying for the Dick Cheney Memorial Prize for the neocon vampire that will not die. The neocons as a whole are a metastasized cancer that is destroying us. I fear it is much too late to treat this disease.

    2. 4paul

      I’m going to channel my inner Yves and say INCOMPLETE … LOL

      Article incomplete, shows one screenshot from the now-defunct newamericancentury.org

      but does not show “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, of which i saved multiple copies, b/c i knew it would be flushed down the memory hole, multiple copies at archive.org

      but actually the UR-text was probably 1992 Defense Planning Guide

      Rebuilding America’s Defenses = omg stroking out, it’s like Peter Thiel wrote page 62: literally cribbed from Heinlein’s Starship Troopers:

      Future soldiers may operate in encapsulated, climate-controlled, powered fighting suits, laced with sensors, and boasting chamelon-like “active” camouflage. “Skin-patch” pharmaceuticals help regulate fears, focus concentration and enhance endurance and strength. … a soldier’s ability to call for highly precise and reliable indirect fires – not only from Army systems but those of other services – allows each individual to have great influence over huge spaces.

      … and compare to the fully kitted ICE Pinkertons in Minneapolis and elsewhere … gah …

      1. AG

        …that 1992 outline which was in the open public has been or should have been known to those who “matter”. Everything we need to know is in those paragraphs. I too quoted it months ago. There is nothing essentially new about what we witness. Only its cosmetic character might not align with other administrations. But does it matter by what sort of bomb children are killed? Smart bombs 2003 or Tomahawks 2026?

        So I beg to differ if now the “critical” MSM all of a sudden cry foul and condemn empire as if we had been benign until a few weeks ago.

        The very soul of this Guide was established in 1950 by that god awful Paul Nitze declaration of infinite cold war, NSC-68.

        The Defense Planning Guide is a perpetuation. But unlike NSC-68 which had been declassified only 1974 people couldn´t claim they hadn´t known about the Defense Planning Guide.

        As the older but corresponding founding piece for neoconism see here NSC-68 on a single page to scroll:
        https://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/gna/Quellensammlung/10/10_nsc68_1950.htm

    1. Mikel

      I want view that gets a look at the faces of the people in the audience. Bewilderment? Boredom? Anger? Fear?

  12. Mikel

    Even Silicon Valley Says that AI Is a Bubble – Atlantic

    I can’t help but hear the unspoken thoughts: “By the time they figure it out, IBGYBG.”

  13. Wukchumni

    A sobering preview’: extreme heat now affects one in three people globally, study finds Guardian
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Drove to Vail from Mammoth, and the snowpack along the way in Colorado is quite bleak, with a heat dome that will melt off most everything in the next fortnight. It really feels more akin to May than March.

    Wildfires will be quite prevalent this annum, you get the idea.

  14. Wukchumni

    Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour’s legendary 1969 “Black Strat” shattered the record for the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction, as it went for $14.5 million Thursday night at a New York City auction house, The Post has learned.

    The sale was made as part of Christie’s Jim Irsay Collection auction: a multi-day auction of music, movie and pop-culture memorabilia that once belonged to the late Indianapolis Colts owner.

    https://nypost.com/2026/03/13/us-news/pink-floyds-instrument-shatters-records-at-nyc-sale-becoming-most-expensive-guitar-ever-sold-at-auction/
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I’m constantly amazed by what our equivalent of religious relics fetch, what’s this guitar worth if a regular Joe owned it?

    A few thousand bucks, maybe?

    1. paul

      The guitar is practically the strat of theseus, what with it’s constant rebuilds and long service in the Texas hard rock cafe outlet.
      It is,however, said to gift purchasers with the ability to sound terrible in front of their bewildered grandchildren.

    2. Glen

      Yeah, that sounds about right. As one of the commenters in this video puts it: “Basically the greatest partscaster of all time”

      The David Gilmour “Black Strat”: A Short History
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgykdq1RMcY

      That’s one of the nice things about a Strat, you can completely take it apart and put it back together with a screwdriver and an hour or so of time.

      I think this is the second time it set a price record. The first time was when David Gilmour auctioned it off in 2019. I wonder which billionaire bought it this time? It really is sorta hard to fathom, that’s way, way more than the average American family will earn in a life time.

      There are more than a few YT videos on how to build your own Black Strat if that’s what you want to do.

  15. m

    long time first time, just want to give a shout out for posting a cute cockatiel as today’s link mascot.

    I have a pair of them. Spiteful little menaces, but ultimately very silly.

  16. John Wright

    Re Trump says the Iran War will end when he “feels it in my bones”.

    He may be referring to the heel bone spurs that served as a deferment for him in the Vietnam War.

    If Trump’s bone spurs become active again, it is a sign that the Iran war is over for him.

    Expect Trump to promote small packets containing sharp pebbles that can be placed in one’s shoes “to feel my pain”.

  17. AG

    re: Iran

    RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT

    Not so diplomatic: Witkoff, Kushner, and Trump’s march to war in Iran

    Reports indicate that two of the president’s key advisers offered misleading advice that helped push the US toward conflict

    by Brank Marcetic
    https://responsiblestatecraft.org/witkoff-iran-war/

    “(…)
    Trump himself publicly claimed that the pair had helped persuade him to go to war. That decision came on the back of a months-long pressure campaign from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, one that was coordinated with pro-war Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and urged on by a coterie of longtime influential hawks, like Hannity and Mark Levin.

    Witkoff’s statements haven’t just raised eyebrows for their oddly bellicose nature. Several experts and foreign officials have also taken issue with Witkoff and Kushner’s apparent ignorance of the technical issues involved.

    Omani foreign minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, a mediator in the talks, made the unusual move of urgently flying to Washington after the talks, to tell both the White House and the American public that, contrary to Wiktoff and Kushner’s nay-saying, Iran had made concessions that went well beyond President Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal.

    Arms Control Association president Daryl Kimball told reporter Laura Rozen that, based on Trump officials’ on-the-record briefing about the failure of the talks, the duo appeared to have fatally misunderstood a series of basic technical and historical matters involved in the talks. While Witkoff and Kushner viewed Iran’s insistence on continuing to use 20% enriched uranium at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) as a red flag, there is no evidence the reactor was being used, or even could be used, to make a bomb, nuclear experts told MS NOW.
    (…)”

  18. Tom Stone

    The temperature in San Francisco is expected to hit 90 degrees this week.
    In March.
    Nothing to see here, move along.

    1. Lefty Godot

      When I first made it to San Francisco in March of 1970, the temperature was in the low 90s. This was after sliding off the interstate and needing to be towed back onto it during a blizzard in Wyoming on the way there, a few days prior.

  19. juno mas

    RE: Balcony Solar

    An equivalent operation would be to send the 12volt direct current output of a 100 watt photovoltaic (PV) panel into a 12v 100 amp LiPo battery with current protection (over-current fuses). Then use 12v, high-output LED lighting in the evening to conserve the 110v AC for use with electric motors (fan, refrigerator, blender,) or the AC power consumed by a large screen TV.

    The micro-inverters mentioned in the article bump the 12v/24v output of the solar panels to 110v conventional AC (alternating current) but they are expensive and incurr the safety concerns un-fused 110v current (fire hazzard).

    Here’s a PV powered home designed in the late 1980’s before solar PV installations used more modular (cheaper) inverters and components. The ECO-HOME has a ‘split’ main service panel (distribution) which automatically switches between generator power (120-240v) and the solar PV input (24v DC). It a state owned building that meets stringent electrical and fire safety code requirements: http://www.land2plan.com/?page_id=289

    1. MicaT

      Micro inverters have all the same safety features that larger ones do. If the breaker were to trip on that circuit the inverter shuts off within 3 cycles or about 1/20th of a second. As to
      overload, let’s say it’s a 300 watt inverter which is only 2.5 amps on the smallest circuit which would be 15 amps.
      Not a safety issue.

    2. Daria

      “Trump reduced solar subsidies…”

      True, but our own Gavin Newsom, PG&E’s strumpet who gets bribes from them, had to repay them somehow, so he slashed the payback for rooftop solar to practically nothing.

      https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/04/18/california-proposes-break-to-rooftop-solar-contracts-raising-average-bills-63/

      “Californians invested tens of thousands of dollars or entered 20+ year contracts with the expectation that they would secure predictable, stable electricity rates for the next two decades or more.

      This predictable cost for electricity amid steadily increasing utility-provided electricity rates was made possible by net energy metering (NEM), which enables customers to export excess daytime production to the local grid in exchange for credit on their electricity bills.

      “AB 942 is a direct attack on California families who made long-term investments in solar with the promise of fair, 20-year Net Energy Metering agreements”

  20. Fastball

    I’m an old guy. Probably not many years to live, so I wonder how many younger folks have seen The Day After.

    Know that the same people who minimize the threat of nuclear war are now in charge of our heroic Iran conquest operation in the ME. People walk delicately around the mad men and ask delicate questions.

    Because, you know, they might get mad and throw people out of interviews.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iyy9n8r16hs

  21. Tom Stone

    It is important to keep in mind that the Trump administration is as lawless at home as it is abroad.
    Ignoring or defying Court orders, kidnapping and murdering both legal residents and Citizens, pardoning criminals, including one who was convicted of importing 400 tons of cocaine…
    He has deeply offended the Republican base, all he has left are Christian Zionists and grifters.
    If Trump cancels the mid terms or tries to rig them in a heavy handed way it is going to get messy, especially if gas is running at $7 per gallon or more.
    Use the Military to quell civil disorder?
    The current brass would go along with that, the troops are very much another question.
    About the only certainty I have is that Trump will become more erratic and more brutal as reality continues to challenge his delusions.

  22. Huey

    What a time to be alive.

    Economy heading to depression.
    Food, fuel, medical and tech shortages coming.
    Children being raped and bombed if not imprisoned and tortured.
    People being starved out because Uncle Sam feels chided.
    People being bombed for fishing.
    Countries tripping over themselves to let the US game them and kill their neighbours.
    Refugees deported to killing fields by the same countries sponsoring them.
    Genocide still raging on swimmingly.
    Two megalomaniacs with nukes poised to lose everything.
    Biodiversity wipeout and climate-driven, mass displacement imminent.
    CBDC-Palantir-Panopticon incoming.
    And now an approaching, interstellar object behaving in a most unusual way for something inanimate.

    Polymarket bid for the likelihood we literally kill ourselves before nature/Zod take a stab at it?

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