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Links 3/17/2026

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How God Got So Great New Yorker (Anthony L)

COVID-19/Pandemics

Climate/Environment

Sleep loss in a warming world Nature

Unprecedented in the past 3.6 million years’: How human-made climate change is making days longer Euronews

Warming Waters Threaten Seafood Supply Inside Climate News

The Return of a Super El Niño: How the Rapid Collapse of La Niña is Triggering a Massive Global Shift for 2026 Severe Weather

US data shows Arctic winter sea ice could break last year’s record low PhysOrg

How the EU lets plastic be labelled ‘recycled’ at just 2.5% re-used content EU Observer

Scientists are warning that glaciers in the Austrian Alps are not just shrinking, but are disintegrating, because of climate change BBC

Mining’s toxic timebomb: dams full of poisonous waste are dotted around the world. What happens when they burst? Guardian

Greenpeace warns of ‘disaster waiting to happen’ as 85 large oil tankers lie trapped in the Persian Gulf Greenpeace

China?

Nvidia chip curbs turn Singapore into AI hub for China Asia Times (Kevin W)

US official rejects FT report, says any delay in Trump’s China visit not tied to request for China to help reopen Hormuz Global Times. The lady doth protest too much.

Koreas

Lee calls for measures to handle worst-case scenarios over prolonged Mideast crisis Korea Herald

India

India aims to ‘dramatically’ deepen ties with EU amid Iran war, global turmoil Politico

Two India carriers secure safe passage through Strait of Hormuz Defense News

A Bitter Education: In its quiescence to the West’s war on Iran, India is squandering a precious legacy New York Review of Books (Anthony L)

Ukrainian Mercenaries Were Caught Training Indian-Designated Terrorists In Drone Warfare Andrew Korybko

Southeast Asia

Vietnam Braces for Flight Cuts From April After China, Thailand Ban Jet Fuel Exports Reuters

Thailand looking to buy oil from Russia, other producers Bangkok Post

Africa

Civil war in Sudan is a never-ending humanitarian crisis DW

IS-linked rebels stage deadly attack on DR Congo mines, says government Le Monde

Inside the ethnic conflict tearing Nigerian villages apart The Times

South of the Border

Donald Trump says he will have the ‘honour’ of ‘taking Cuba in some form’ Financial Times

Mexico’s Lopez Obrador Rallies Support for Cuba During Widespread Protests Bloomberg (Robin K)

Gov’t failed to protect Guyana’s interests in relation to Cuba -Norton Stabroek News (Robin K)

European Disunion

EU has not ‘legitimised’ Trump’s Board of Peace, Commissioner Šuica says Euronews. The vassals are testing the choke chain a teeny bit.

Europe’s energy weakness is too great to ignore Euractiv

Fuel tourism: Dutch drivers warned over stockpiling petrol in Belgium amid energy crisis Brussels Times

Teacher wins day with minister – wants to complain about purchase Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T:

So the Minister doesn‘t work for more than 3 hours/day? This Minister is an immigrant with parents from Lebanon and Palestine. She is the leader of the Liberal party. Two days ago she was hugging the anti-immigrant, anti-Arabic, Zionist-supporting leader of the Swedish far-right party Sweden Democrats. That is the kind of person who charges you 7500USD to spend a three hour workday with her.

Old Blighty

Stockpile medicine to avoid shortage during Iran war, pharmacists tell Streeting Telegraph

UK supermarkets ‘face fruit and veg shortages’ as farmers ‘stop production’ Mirror

Israel v. The Resistance

Rafah crossing closure leaves Gaza patients trapped without treatment Aljazeera

* * *

Iranian leaders taunt ‘US Epstein class’ during war Middle East Eye

‘Not our war’: How the world has reacted to Trump’s call to patrol the Hormuz Strait RT (Kevin W)

Saudi Arabia says it has intercepted more than 60 drones since midnight Agence France-Presse

Not so diplomatic: Witkoff, Kushner, and Trump’s march to war in Iran Responsible Statecraft (resilc)

Zionism’s Biggest MISTAKE In 300 Years. End Of Project. | Profs. J. Sachs & Y. Rabkin Pascal Lottaz, YouTube

* * *

Trump says Israel ‘would never’ use nuclear weapons Anadolu Agency (resilc)

New Not-So-Cold War

Stanislav Krapivnik: US getting hammered. Trump is screwed. EU destined for destruction. Ian Proud, YouTube (Li). Includes good discussion of how European weapons production is dependent on US and 20-30 years behind

Imperial Collapse Watch

Trump 2.0

Federal judge blocks RFK Jr’s overhaul of vaccine recommendations Guardian (Kevin W)

Trump to Kennedy Center board ahead of vote on 2-year shutdown: ‘You have to close it’ The Hill

Democrats Suck

Senate Dem Leaders Are Trying to Sink Graham Platner. Voters Aren’t Convinced. Intercept

Our No Longer Free Press

See also John Kirakou, at 14:20 on DeProgram, with more on Laura Loomer and Kirakou’s role in setting up the interview with Pezeshkian and the role of extremist Zionists.

The World’s Biggest Liar Accuses the Media of Lies and Treason Michael Shedlock

Economy

Oil Shock Hits An Economy Already Showing Cracks Wall Street Journal. From over the weekend, still germane

US shale producers not yet tempted by $100 oil Financial Times

Mr. Market is Moody

Iran War: Echoes of Financial Crises Past Finance News Network

Three major issues were threatening markets before the war. They haven’t gone away Telegraph

AI

The dictionary sues OpenAI TechCrunch (Kevin W)

How to spot fake food photos Godare via machine translation (Micael T)

Class Warfare

Rising Prices and High Interest Rates Are Making Car Ownership Feel Impossible New York Times (Kevin W)

Affordability and an Abundance Agenda for Health Care Counterpunch. resilc: “The coming 1.5 trillion for DoD and we won’t have access to even bandaids.”

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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81 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “US official rejects FT report, says any delay in Trump’s China visit not tied to request for China to help reopen Hormuz”

    In Alex Christoforou’s latest video, he brought up a very interesting idea. He suggested that Trump thought that by now he would already have Iran – and all it’s oil – in his pocket by now. So the idea was that he would turn up in China and say to Xi that he now controls Venezuela & Iran’s oil fields which use to send oil to China. And that he might concede to let oil to continue to go to China – for a price. Here I would guess that China would have to start shipping refined earths to the Pentagon once more. This sounds like something that Trump & Bessant would think of.

    2. Louis Fyne

      No. state visits are not negotiations. they’re ceremonies to sign deals that their underlings settled beforehand

      compare/contrast a state visit to a summit a la 1986 Reagan v. Gorbachev in Iceland. eg, Trump”s summit in Singapore v. NK.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Normally that would be true but Trump does not think like that. He uses real estate hucksters instead of professional negotiators and thinks that he can make “deals” with countries all by himself. In fact, he only thinks in terms of commercial deals instead of negotiated agreements and treaties.

  2. diptherio

    Does anybody have a link to any actual news sources about the supposed return of the USS Abe Lincoln to port? That tweet only has supposed headlines, but no links. I went to Reuters and CNN and searched for anything about the ship and ….. NOTHING (recent anyway). I think that guy is making shit up, because I’m seeing bupkis about this from actual news sources except that IRGC claims they hit the ship, which is old news now. The tweet implies there’s been confirmation and everyone is talking about it, except no one is actually talking about it that I can find. Those headlines do not seem to exist outside of that guy’s tweet. As Lambert used to say, “links or it didn’t happen.”

      1. Jokerstein

        She’s not showing up on Marine Traffic, normally an indicator that the AIS transponder has been turned off (or disabled?).

      1. diptherio

        That’s the Ford. But those tweets are all “quoting” stories/headlines about the Lincoln…none of which appear to actually exist. The fog of war is thick…

    5. 4paul

      Yesterday’s news is all I find, USS Lincoln off of Oman as others have found Carrier Strike Group pull back
      Lincoln on station approx. Jan 26th; deployments are supposed to be max 6 months, with 3 months “on station” …

      SIDEBAR #1: Interview on Navy Times website posted yesterday Monday, which agrees with much of what we have been posting here:

      Kelly Grieco, Senior Fellow, The Stimson Center, interviewed by Riley Ceder, Reporter, Military Times
      Grieco = Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Georgetown, Brute Krulak Center of the Marine Corps University

      4:25 (THAAD interceptors) we’re only procuring about 30 or so per year [used ~150 in the “12 Day War” last June”]
      7:55 the Israelis in particular have claimed they have destroyed at least two hundred of them [ballistic missile launchers] which would leave Iran with fewer than a hundred
      11:35 [Friday announcement of new interceptor procurement] they’re not actual contracts … it’s important to realize these are agreements and we’re not at the contract stage
      13:14 in my mind this is one of the more troubling revelations from the war, is the degree to which, it appears anyway, the United States was not prepared for this Shahed threat [EDITOR: oopsie!]
      14:05 [interceptor drones] it’s startling that you can have watched the Ukraine war, and not had a real urgency around the need to protect US forces from these one-way attack drones
      15:30 [current Administration] they’re making smart decisions now that will pay off in the years to come, the problem though is right now the war in the Middle East is happening
      16:00 [number of missile strikes] higher for the Gulf States than even Israel … I think they see the Gulf States as the potential weak point in the coalition

      SIDEBAR #2
      New jamming pods not reliable – TWZ article on the Lincoln sorties from the first week

      SIDEBAR #3
      Gamer voiceover wants propaganda pulled – Master Chief not happy

  3. Ben Panga

    Re: Thailand looking to buy oil from Russia, other producers

    Anecdata from a friend 4 hours North of Bangkok this afternoon:

    “No fuel at any of the gas stations within 35km”

    —

    Da Nang so far still normal, but it’s starting to get real feeling.

    —

    It occurs to me it doesn’t matter the price of Brent/WTI if you can’t get delivery.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      I have been following the Bangkok Post. Most of Thailand has fuel at the pump. They have been listing the area out of fuel and it is not all that many (but they may encompass a pretty large area particularly if rural; the names are all in parts of the country I do not know at all). Bangkok has fuel and we do here, for instance.

    1. pjay

      There’s a new Taibbi-Tracey show? After Matt’s last few posts I had hopes he was getting back to the useful journalistic critiques for which he was once known. Linking up with Tracey again would dash these hopes pretty quickly (I’m assuming Epstein would be a major subject, given Tracey’s obsession with “debunking” it for all of us morons).

      1. lyman alpha blob

        Same here – I was thinking Taibbi had turned a corner and started taking a peek at his site again. Then I saw the Taibbi-Tracey show and couldn’t bring myself to watch.

        If anybody took one for the team and watched it, I’d love to know if it was halfway decent. Still didn’t cancel my subscription but the annual renewal is coming up shortly. I may just send my money to Dropsite instead, which has been doing excellent work.

        1. pjay

          It looks like the Due Dissidence guys took one for the team. And it does *not* sound good:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAPT6JPj7yQ

          They start their commentary with a very relevant question: who in the hell do Taibbi and Tracey think are the *audience* for this narrative? Even MAGA folks who still support Trump have no inclination to wave off Epstein. Nor do liberals, of course. Different groups use the Epstein issue for different agendas, but almost no one but these guys – or the Dershowitz hit squad seeking to destroy all victims. Why on earth do these guys insist on choosing *this* hill to die on? If it is such a nothingburger then just ignore it and discuss oh, I don’t know, how about *the war with Iran*? But no.

    1. In Cold Chud

      This is probably an oversimplification, but Silicon Valley hasn’t produced anything socially useful in at least 20 years; it has to be reactionary. It’s an industry that would be a small fraction of it’s size, and have none of It’s cultural power, without subsidies from the national security state, artificial private-sector demand, and surplus value betting on it as the ultimate Ponzi scheme. The central tenet of leftism is that labor has power because everyone needs its products, with capital as an unnecessary, parasitic middleman. No one except the national security state needs any of the more recent products of Silicon Valley, and I doubt many people working there are revolutionary enough to revolutionize themselves out of a job. (The MIC more broadly had previously corrupted large swathes of American labor, in a similar way.)

      EDIT: Somehow this ended up as a response to this comment, and not the one that included the Jacobin link, below. Sorry!

  7. Henry Moon Pie

    How God got so great–

    In the current context, this article addresses an important topic, but it comes up short in two important respects. Perhaps the problem is that the author, a Sikh, lacks the background in Jewish or Christian exegetical theology and relies on too few sources for his ideas about the development of monotheism.

    This key paragraph contains his biggest failure:

    When the Assyrians conquered Israel, in 722 B.C.E., and the Babylonians devastated Judah, in 588 B.C.E., they also destroyed Yahweh’s temples, possibly including statues of Yahweh himself. It was around this time that the familiar contours of Abrahamic monotheism began to coalesce. An idea gained ground that gods other than Yahweh did not truly exist, or else were inferior beings, qualitatively different from him. New Biblical texts, including Deuteronomy and large portions of Isaiah, were composed. Older passages were revised. Insistent formulas proliferated: “There is no other”; “There is none besides.”

    First of all, Deuteronomy did not appear after the Fall of Jerusalem. Most scholars identify Deuteronomy with the book “found” during the reign of King Josiah around 622 BCE, after the fall of the northern kingdom but before the fall of the southern kingdom of Judah:

    In the eighteenth year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphan son of Azaliah son of Meshullam, the secretary, to the house of the Lord, saying, “Go up to the high priest Hilkiah and have him add up the entire sum of the silver that has been brought into the house of the Lord that the keepers of the threshold have collected from the people…The high priest Hilkiah said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.” When Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, he read it…. Shaphan then read it aloud to the king. When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. Then the king commanded the priest Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Achbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the secretary, and the king’s servant Asaiah, saying, “Go, inquire of the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found, for great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us.”

    II Kings 22:3-13 (NRSVU)

    Now Deuteronomy, like the rest of the bits and pieces that Ezra and the boys edited along with new material to make the Torah, was most likely edited to fit within Ezra’s overall narrative that vindicated YHWH and placed the blame for the Fall of Jerusalem on the unfaithfulness of the kings and people, but it pre-existed the Babylonians conquering Jerusalem. Later, Singh tries to locate the core confession of monotheism in Deuteronomy 6:14, even though he admits the verse is ambiguous whether it’s monotheistic or henotheistic (Singh somehow never uses this important term and uses a near synonym “monolatry.”):

    The chief expression of Jewish monotheism appears in Deuteronomy 6:4, at the opening of the prayer known as the Shema, when Moses declares, “Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one.” By around 200 C.E., this verse was treated as “the central theological foundation of Judaism,” as Grossberg notes…The Hebrew is ambiguous when it comes to the placement of the verb “to be,” and the line can just as readily be translated as “YHWH is our God, YHWH alone”—the rendering adopted by the Jewish Publication Society in 1999. In either case, Grossberg argues, the verse points less to Yahweh’s singular divinity than to his incomparability, expressing something closer to “Yahweh is the greatest among gods” than to “Yahweh is the only god.”

    While Singh mentions “large portions of Isaiah” as being monotheistic (without specifying Second Isaiah (40-55)), he fails to locate the much less ambiguous monotheistic declarations in that text. This is of critical importance because it obscures the reason for the appearance of monotheism among the exiled religious elites in Babylon post-Fall. In the henotheistic worldview, shared by Babylon, Assyria and Judah, the defeat of a nation and the destruction of its temple meant the demise of that nation’s god as well. Understandably, the exiled religious elites of Judah resisted this outcome because it meant the death of their religion and their culture, so it’s not surprising that Ezekiel had a vision of YHWH’s Shekinah departing the temple prior to the destruction of the temple and that Second Isaiah made the bold move to monotheism in order to save YHWH:

    Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel
    and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:
    I am the first and I am the last;
    besides me there is no god.

    Isaiah 44:6 (NRSV)

    I haven’t read Grossberg’s book, on which Singh seems to rely almost exclusively, but no clear motivation for the move to monotheism appears in Singh’s article beyond “an idea gained ground,” a Hand-Wave Passive if I ever saw one. Singh, following Grossberg, approaches the appearance of monotheism as an “advancement” “discovered” by Judaism’s never-ending quest for knowledge of the assumed monotheistic God. Singh himself adopts this attitude toward monotheism without even considering whether the invention of monotheism was essentially a cope for religious leaders faced with the death of their god and their religion.

    This brings us to the second failure of Singh’s article. He never considers one of critical scholarship’s most cogent criticisms of monotheism: Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity. From Wiki (sorry, I don’t have a copy of Feuerbach):

    Religion, according to Feuerbach, is the “dream of the human mind” in which humanity alienates its own essential qualities—such as reason, love, and will—and projects them onto a divine being, which it then worships as other than itself.

    Any careful or even casual reader of the Torah will find YHWH to be a portrait of an ancient Near Eastern tyrant: capricious, jealous, violent and repressive. YHWH even considers himself to be Israel’s king and is insulted when the people ask the judge and prophet Samuel to select and anoint a king for them. I Samuel 8. This contrasts with polytheistic religions in the Levant, like that of Ugarit, which tie gods not to human roles but to the natural world of sea and thunderstorm. Viewed from the 21st century and the surpassing of 7 of 9 planetary boundaries, monotheism was a big step down the wrong path that has led us to human hubris threatening to bring down human civilization.

    I’ve come to the point that I think one of humanity’s biggest errors was when some humans began to look up in the sky for their gods rather than at the Earth beneath their feet, the faces of their fellow animals, the great trees and the beautiful flowers. Religion lost contact with the natural world that had created humans through evolution and that continued to nurture and feed humanity along with the rest of living things. Projecting a human being into the heavens to rule over us meant that our true origins and true nature were obscured, an appropriate humility was discarded in favor of a boundless hubris, and wars of religion became endemic. No, monotheism is not some kind of advance. It was a step down a path leading to disaster.

    2. Rui

      Sigmund Freud wrote a small book on the origins of monotheism in Judaism that I enjoyed very much. Probably debunked academically but it made sense.

    3. Wukchumni

      Appeasing some figment of our imagination must have something to do with the emphasis stars had on us thousands of years ago, all too real, reliably up in the sky and unobtainable.

      If we emphasized this good Earth instead, it would throw a spanner in the works.

    4. Judith

      Thanks Henry. Your last paragraph resonates for me. I spent a lot of time in the woods as a kid and now live on the edge of a state forest after too many years in the city. A feeling of wonder and a feeling of belonging there always.

      And another book to read.

    5. Lefty Godot

      Two roads to monotheism out of polytheism: (1) “My God’s bigger than yours!” (2) “Wouldn’t it be an elegant idea if we could reduce this issue to One God hiding behind all the masks of the other apparent deities?”

      So on the first road you make your favorite god so big that they are the creator/ruler of the whole of existence, after a series of steps where your followers outlaw worship of the competing gods and tell the king (or whatever the local head thug’s title is) that he is the living embodiment of the new bestest/supremest god; then keep moving up the aggrandizement ladder as you go from city-state to nation to empire.

      On the second road, you’re drinking wine with your philosopher friends and discussing the nature of Reality, and at a certain point of tipsiness, One God just seems like the perfect simplifying solution that makes your argument so much more attractive. “Hey, Plato, are you taking notes on this? Take notes, man!”

      1. Henry Moon Pie

        An example of polytheism->monotheism=Roman Empire after the conversion of Constantine. There had been groundwork laid. Socrates may have made that personal journey, but he didn’t have much luck proselytizing. Jeremiah was a similar character.

        An example of henotheism->monotheism=Judah’s exiles living in Babylon after the Fall of Jerusalem when Babylon proved Marduk was bigger than YHWH. Thus it was the loser that made the move to monotheism, not the winner. It was essentially a cope.

        1. Lefty Godot

          In the case of the exiles, they had to wait till they got back on their own territory (more or less) to make it stick, and even then there was a lot of backsliding among a part of the population. And, yes, the losing and winning can both be explained as supporting evidence based on the Big Guy being unhappy or pleased with the level of subservience of His believers. The one message people (including religious people) should take away from the study of religion is “Never trust a priest!” And especially never trust one with a reputation/credentials in theology. (And by “priest” I mean to include rabbi, guru, televangelist, imam, faith healer, shaman, etc., as well.) A religion may be benign, useful, helpful, uplifting, etc., but delegation of divine authority to human intermediaries should always be suspect.

    6. Anthony Noel

      Except our true “origin” is the sky.

      Virtually every speck of matter on this planet comes from our local star.

      The only reason those “great trees and beautiful flowers” are around is because of the giant ball of nuclear fusion spitting unfathomable amounts of energy into surrounding local space “feeds” the photosynthetic chemical reaction that keeps them alive long enough for something to kill them to take that energy.

      The only reason we have a planet at all is because of the gravitational pull of our local star causing matter accretion which leads to a planet forming and falling into a stable orbit rather then being flung off into the near endless dark of the sky.

      And I’m sorry followers of polytheistic nature religions happily butchered each other just as enthusiastically as any monotheistic religion. No, monotheism was not an advance, it was simply another branch of idiocy just like polytheism.

    1. pjay

      From Loomer’s post linked above:

      “You have no idea how relentless I have been in speaking to GOP reps and even reporting Tucker to law enforcement and the DOJ.”

      I was surprised to find a sentence uttered by Loomer which I have no trouble at all believing! The really depressing thing is that I have no trouble visualizing how many GOP reps and officials in Trump’s DOJ actually listen to her.

  10. eg

    I fear Cuba is going to get the Grenada treatment. Nothing the US likes more than to slap a poor little country south of them whenever its fiascos in West Asia go sideways.

    1. albrt

      Cuba is big enough to resist, but I don’t know enough to predict whether Cubans would react to a Trump incursion like the Vietnamese socialists or the Venezuelan socialists.

      1. Bugs

        I’ve been there a few times and have had conversations with conscripts and guys who were in the army. They are sympathetic to America as an idea, the people who would be friends, baseball, cool music, etc. but will resist takeover. The pride in the Revolution, the neighborhood committee structure, the general resistance to imperialist domination, still has power. Though the corruption at the top is a bugaboo.

  11. Tom Stone

    The War with Iran was supposed to be a shopping trip, a little excursion to the Mid East where Trump was supposed to come home with Iran in his pocket after a weekend of “Shock and Awe”.
    You know, murder a few thousand innocents, including school girls by the hundreds and then accept the thanks of the Iranian populace as they begin to enjoy the fruits of FREEDOM!.
    Easy Peasy.
    A slam dunk.
    A guaranteed win because no one can defy Donald the Magnificent, holder of the FIFA peace prize.
    Oops.

    1. Henry Moon Pie

      “a little excursion”

      It turned out to be a “three hour tour” that left Cap’n Trump and his crew stranded on Kharg Island.

    2. Cassandra

      “Donald the Magnificent, holder of the FIFA peace prize”

      Turns out he has the FAFO peace prize instead…

  12. The Rev Kev

    “Europe’s energy weakness is too great to ignore”

    Frankly the leaders of the EU are trying to ignore the whole situation as much as they can. Not only are they refusing to look to Russia for energy supplies, but they are criticizing other countries that do on the grounds that the money will add to Putin’s war machine and prolong the war. People like Kaja Kallas are having a sad that money and weapons are going to the Gulf and not the Ukraine.

  13. Ignacio

    Queue to get antibiotics because you were close to a person that got infected.

    This would be pre-emptive antibiotic if these people haven’t been lumbar punctured before treatment. I learn from the WHO that pre-emptive antibiotic treatment can indeed be recommended for close contacts with people who have been diagnosed. I had this disease when i was 14 yo. Let me tell you, it develops extremely fast!

  14. Bugs

    “A Bitter Education: In its quiescence to the West’s war on Iran, India is squandering a precious legacy A Bitter Education: In its quiescence to the West’s war on Iran, India is squandering a precious legacy”

    A very good essay about how today’s India is losing its soul to the feckless commercial caste that dominates New Delhi.

    When you run across non-resident anglophone Indians who return to holiday in their home country, they mostly buy into the new ideology, even some of the most flagrant examples, like the Ayodhya Ram temple, rewriting history education to exclude the Mughals, etc. At the same time, Muslim Indians have brought Gulf and KSA veiling practices back with them from their jobs there, making the difference between the religions much more obvious to the casual observer than perhaps 20-30 years ago.

  15. ISL

    Greenpeace has money to raise, but the reality is that everything in the Gulf that is oil-sensitive died a long time ago, and their ecological niche was filled by oil-tolerant species – oil is just another evolutionary stressor. Sorry, Greenpeace, nature is more powerful than you can imagine. I have studied (and published on) chemosynthetic communities, which depend 100% on petroleum energy. Successful species have evolved cellular adaptations to elevated toxin concentrations.

    Now the Arctic is a different ocean that really needs Greenpeace – I hope they are willing to oppose US geopolitical interests – there still is no realistic plan for oil spill response in the Arctic, and yet the US is hellbent on opening oil production in a truly fragile ecosystem.

    1. jefemt

      Lincoln, Ford… same US manufacturer, differnt levels of Luxury, differnt price points, differnt repair costs…

  16. The Rev Kev

    ‘Donald J. Gorbachev
    @donaldgorbachev
    A laundry fire that takes thirty hours to extinguish on a $13 billion carrier with the most advanced damage control systems in any navy on earth. That displaces 600 crew from their berths. On a ship designed to take battle damage and keep fighting. And the explanation is the laundry.’

    Looks like the Gerald Ford is living up to its namesake. NPR reported in January that the warship called for outside help 42 times since 2023, with the frequency increasing over time. And some of the sailors are really soured on serving in the Navy altogether-

    ‘Richard
    @ricwe123
    You sign up feeling proud, ready to serve in the mighty US Navy and defend your country.
    Then you find out your real deployment isn’t combat, it’s fighting for your life in a full-blown toilet apocalypse.
    😂😂😂’

    https://x.com/ricwe123/status/2026185409479286993 (10 sec video)

  18. farmboy

    nailed by Nika Dubrosky, frump=Yeltsin
    “By now, we have all realized that the current American political spectacle looks like a sequel to the collapse of the USSR.
    Trump perfectly plays the drunk Yeltsin. Biden was a precise reproduction of Brezhnev. Only there was no American Gorbachev, and there never will be.
    Some — liberals, mostly — believe Obama was the Gorbachev, but they are wrong, as liberals tend to be. Mikhail Sergeyevich was a genuine believer — in a new world, in socialism with a human face, in the end of history. Just like the idiot Fukuyama, but without the academic immunity.
    So when the Club of Rome and the collective West bent Gorbachev over, he was genuinely surprised. Even Putin and the other serious guys from the security services couldn’t believe for a long time that they’d been played like kittens.
    Obama, on the other hand, believed in nothing — he simply did his job, honestly and with extraordinary efficiency, as a marketing agent for financial capitalism, which has since moved, quite logically, into its militarist phase.

    Our previous president, Biden, painfully resembled Brezhnev, both were visibly falling apart, struggling to put two words together.
    Trump has outdone Biden and even more precisely copied the next Russian president in line, Yeltsin.”

    2. Henry Moon Pie

      And here Susie Wiles told Chris Whipple that Trump might have an alcoholic personality, but she was no “enabler.”

    3. ISL

      Since I have been paying attention to presidents (Nixon) I used to think the next could not be worse, and they never fail to exceed in manifesting a decreasing competency (for the US overall, though for the oligarchic vultures picking over the putrefying wounds). Why Reagan is appearing a paragon of virtue despite his war crimes and destruction of US labor, environmental destruction, and the beginning of the de-industrialization. What interesting times we live in.

  19. The Rev Kev

    “Saudi Arabia says it has intercepted more than 60 drones since midnight”

    In all seriousness, you could reword that headline to say-

    “Iran says it has destroyed more than 120 interceptors since midnight”

    The Saudis will run out of interceptors long, long before the Iranians run out of drones.

    1. Michael Hachey

      I do believe it is possible to destroy Shahed drones with heavy artillery; you don’t necessarily need a fancy missile defense system.

  20. Otto Reply

    The Susan Abulhawa video reply to Mamdani and others is well worth a listen. Her fierce courage and steady tone exhibit a genuine humane compassion and restraint that in no way compromises her condemnation of Zionist atrocities and genocide. The power of it made me weep.

    1. DJG, Reality Czar

      Otto Reply:

      Yes, a must. It is a remarkable statement.

      The ending Is especially important for her seeking of common ground with Mamdani. So is her theme throughout of the importance of the arts in making us humane.

      In the McCarthy era, this speech would have had repercussions nationwide.

      Yet in the social-media era, with 3.5 million views when I watched, can she obtain the influence on opinion that she deserves?

  22. The Rev Kev

    ‘Idris
    @7signxx
    “**Eye-Opening Reality — A Lesson for African Leaders**
    Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says:
    In 2004, Malaysia purchased 8 F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets from the United States, which were among the most advanced aircraft at the time. The value of this deal exceeded $640 million.
    Ultimately, Malaysia realized that it had bought aircraft that could not be used in actual combat without US approval.’

    Buying US aircraft is always a dodgy proposition. Switzerland was wanting to buy F-35s but the people organized a referendum to vote it down. So the Swiss government went behind their backs and signed all the contracts before the vote on the referendum could take place. They must have thought that they were so smart. Going by memory they ordered 36 F-35s for a fixed price but before long they were told by the US that they had to pay for this and that which was outside the terms of the contract but they had to pay it anyway. Last I heard, in order to still afford those fighters, they have had to cut down the order to 30 F-35s instead. Not so smart now.

  23. Tom Stone

    One predictable outcome of Trump’s “Excursion” in the Mid East is an increase in the number of suicides among America’s service members, a number that is already high.
    It’s one thing when the Wars are started with lies that are initially convincing to a large part of the Public and the Military, it’s entirely another thing when there is no fig leaf, no pretense of legality.
    I know that if I had been complicit in the murder of more than 150 schoolgirls that I would not be able to live with myself.

  24. pjay

    On Susan Abulhawa’s response to Mamdani

    I saw this the other day. Very powerful. It was sad to see Mamdani once again capitulate to the propaganda-baiters. He’s smart and can think on his feet; he could have easily responded in a manner that would have exposed this tactic rather than reinforced it. Surely he knows by now that such conciliatory efforts with the Zionists will not lead to dialogue or mutual understanding, but just to their doubling down the next time.

    I understand the position Mamdani is in and I try to take that into account before becoming completely cynical. But I thought this was unnecessary. Hopefully he has read her response and takes it to heart.

  25. Tom Stone

    Am I missing something?
    The AI ecosystem has an insatiable need for capital and no apparent path to profitability while the $ they were counting on from the gulf just disappeared and “Investors” are looking at their “Investments” and pulling away from those that look risky.
    Absent the Fed Gov stepping in, which is becoming less politically feasible as the economy falters, where is the $ going to come from?

    1. lyman alpha blob

      Trump coins.

      Seriously though, I do think they have some grift planned to use crypto to finance various dubious ventures. That’s what the whole stablecoin thing is all about – tying crypto to Treasuries and creating a demand for moar US$.

  26. LawnDart

    Re; Trump says Israel ‘would never’ use nuclear weapons

    What were Your thoughts when you first saw this headline?

    1. Wukchumni

      Why, we would oblige the Zionist Assassination Bureau with some of our older stock of brand new-never used weapons

  28. Tom Stone

    For those who are curious about Trump’s brilliant plan to control the Mid East, here it is.

    1) Treacherously start an illegal War against Iran in the middle of peace negotiations by Murdering the Spiritual leader of Shia Islam along with most of his family while simultaneously attacking the most strategically important targets in Iran.
    Hospitals, Girls elementary schools and the occasional military facility.

    2) TOTAL VICTORY!!! In 72 hours or less.

    3) Nobel Peace Prize.

    4) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for Trump friends and Family.

    5) Persian Gulf re named “Gulf of Trump”.

    I hope this clarifies the understanding of any that were confused, the plans of a stable genius can be difficult for normal intellects to comprehend.

    1. Keith Newman

      Tom Stone at 4:02 pm
      Very grateful to you for the clarification. My weak intellect was previously quite confused.
      But shouldn’t there be a 6) Jesus returns?

  29. Rabbit

    Raise your hand if you’ve known large warships were expensive targets since the Falklands War.

    1. Tom Stone

      it’s only since 1982 that surface ships including carriers became out sized targets, 44 years,nowhere near enough time for the USN to adapt.
      And Jeez, the captain’s quarters on the big carriers are really nice….

  31. AG

    re: China?

    Sorry if this was already made clear in the past days, but how important is Iranian oil for China, for real?

    I am asking as Jacques Baud yesterday with Nima estimated Iranian oil to account only for a few percent of the entire Chinese energy demand.

    REUTERS on January 16th in a typically misleadingly titled headline suggested 13% of Chinese oil came from Iran:

    China’s heavy reliance on Iranian oil imports
    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/chinas-heavy-reliance-iranian-oil-imports-2026-01-13/

    German daily BERLINER ZEITUNG just yesterday however claimed with imprecise formulations an exaggerated significance of Iran for China:

    Trump and Iran: It’s The Oil, Stupid!

    “(…)China is by far the largest importer of Iranian oil. Iranian tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz deliver almost exclusively to China. And this is precisely where the strategic logic behind Charg becomes clear: whoever controls Iran’s oil exports controls a key energy source for China.(…)”

    The article then briefly expands to mentioning Venezuela.

    https://archive.is/G3osz

    Writing this about Iran-China without offering an actual figure is pretty misleading.

    Baud made clear with Nima that China could easily substitute for loss of Iranian oil for its energy supplies if necessary.

    But now countless people are running around with a completely false picture in their head.

    And this is happening with all areas of this war.

    For instance still hardly anyone in Germany understands that Iran is winning this war. Germans like to think “coz America big and powerful”.
    Sigh…

  32. AG

    p.s. missed to include this CNBC, hopefully answering my own question (sorry…)
    https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/09/china-oil-shock-iran-war-hormuz-energy-transition.html

    China: “(…)relies on the Strait of Hormuz for about 40% to 50% of its seaborne oil imports.(…)
    However, oil shipments through the strait account for only 6.6% of China’s overall energy consumption, according to Nomura’s chief China economist Ting Lu.

    Natural gas imports through the route account for another 0.6%, he said.

    The shift reflects two decades of strategic transition, giving China a unique position in global energy markets.
    (…)”

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