Links 3/25/2026

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1. Steve H. March 25, 2026 at 7:06 am

   > Folks this can’t be happening!

   That’s right, because this is disingenuous chart porn. They knocked out 2023, 24, and 25. It’s at record high, that’s not good, but they ripped off the dress and squealed the petticoat isn’t fit for a ball.

   See: Climate Reanalyzer
   1. Enter Laughing March 25, 2026 at 8:40 am

      Actually it’s not a record high.

      There were several days in 2024 in which the daily sea surface temperature reached 21.17 C — a bit higher than the 21.14 C recorded on March 23, 2026.

      But you wouldn’t know that because the poster deliberately de-selected 2024 from the graphic.
2. Ben Panga March 25, 2026 at 7:29 am

   Re: Peter Thiel is betting big on a $2B AI cow collar startup powered by cowgorithms — and investors are fighting to get in

   “The collars connect to a farmer’s phone, allowing ranchers to monitor their herd’s location and health indicators through an app — and even move cattle remotely using vibrations and audio cues from the devices.”

   No truth to the rumour that Palantir is planning to offer this technology to employers (/s)
   1. MT_Bill March 25, 2026 at 8:41 am

      Interestingly enough, I sat through a two-day online forest service seminar on targeted grazing using e-collars. They’re really pushing for requiring all grazing to be “targeted” grazing.

      There are a lot of potential benefits, but it could also just be folks trying to make a quick buck.
      1. t March 25, 2026 at 9:20 am

         How are the collars meant to move the cows around. Will the train them? DOesn’t someone still have to go out and look at the pastures? Is the idea to collar the whole herd? Or just certain animals?

         What happens if a cow moves away from the herd to calve? Will the collar try to move her back where she belongs?
         1. MT_Wild March 25, 2026 at 11:04 am

            You have to train the cows to the collars. And it’s not just a single virtual fence, you generally have multiple similar polygons nested within each other. As the cows start to cross through them, they get stronger signals to move back in the right direction.

            You collar all the adults, don’t have to collar calves. Data I’ve seen shows a high acceptance rate by the cows but a few are just belligerent and won’t listen. If you’re familiar with cows that’s not surprising.

            The collars get you various data streams. There’s high and low activity alerts, so animals being frightened or perhaps sick or giving birth, estimates of time spent foraging vs. wandering around, etc.

            I’m looking at using collared cows for invasive grass control, and using real-time remote sensing data on two week intervals to target areas of high density during green up. Basically using reduction in NVDI and increase in cow movements relative to foraging and/or willingness to push the virtual fence as indicator of having grazed off the invasives and then moving the virtually fenced pasture across the landscape. There’s a window in the spring where the invasives are growing before native vegetation is greening up it’s conducive to this type of work.
   2. Wukchumni March 25, 2026 at 9:33 am

      Bovine Intervention?
   3. Revenant March 25, 2026 at 12:27 pm

      Core VC maxim: never be too early!

      We invested in a fitbit-for-cows physiology monitoring solution plus AI analytics back in 2016. It had some brilliant insights, using machine learning to baseline individual cow behaviour and detect / predict issues and events like lameness, overheating, oestrus etc. far more consistently than the unskilled labour being hired by BigAg.

      Despite this, it was very hard to get sales. We had a big contract with a global dairy produce brand but never got it rolled out at scale. Price was an issue – fancy monitoring collars don’t come cheap – and also the competitor of “do nothing”, nobody got fired for accepting the status quo and failing conventionally.

      We ended up selling the business to a trad-ag manufacturer of plastic ear tags, LOL.

      Halter is a little different to our product. It enables the farmer to define the fences virtually, by GPS. This can be very useful if running very actively managed grazing systems like mob grazing (moving many cows daily between small paddocks to mimic wild grazing patterns driven by herding/predator instincts). I don’t know if it now includes physiometry.

      The quid pro quo is that the cow is wearing a big shock collar….

      I will definitely run the numbers in detail on a Halter solution before I invest in a lot of fencing for our eco-tall grass grazing plan for our farm. Back of the envelope analysis:
      – $5-$8 per cow per month sounds expensive when you consider a 100 cow suckler herd with 100 calves will make say $50k profit per annum (at current high calf prices). That’s $12,000-$19,200 of extra cost per annum. Call is $16,000
      – However, with traditional fencing at $16/metre, that’s say 1000m a year. That’s the perimeter of a square field of side 250m or an area of 62,500sqm or 6.25ha or c. 16 acres.
      – I would need roughly 20 years to refence the farm at 16 acres per year (usual fence life is 10 years, maybe 20 with a lot of patching).
      – that’s just perimeter fencing. If I divided the farm into 130 1ha blocks, I need 130 fields of side 100m and perimeter 400m, that’s 52,000m of fencing (naively) or c. 26,000m allowing for shared edges. Refencing 26,000m in 20 years requires 1,300m fencing per year which is $20,800 per annum versus $16,000 for Halter.
      – so, maybe Halter is cheaper for mob grazing and you get digital data of some kind on too
      – BUT a fenced field works for any livestock (can halter deal with sheep or pigs or horses etc?) and in the UK there is a grant of $9 towards the fencing cost. So Halter then looks very expensive at $16k versus $9,100 per annum.

      I’m going to sit on the fence on this buying decision!
3. amfortas March 25, 2026 at 7:29 am

   came across this:https://x.com/cirnosad/status/2036667172458799300

   and also a map, that i cant find, now, regarding how everything in north america is leafing/budding way, way early.
   i will add my own observation: i spend most of my time outside, so i notice things, year over year. this year, not only are the trees leafing/budding early, they are doing so out of order…mesquites are usually last, and thus the old timer’s evidence that spring is really here. oaks are second to last. not this year,lol.
   elms, usually rather early, are just now doing their thing…and the figs leafed out way early, and got bit by the freeze last week.
   signs and portents.
   1. Ben Panga March 25, 2026 at 8:16 am

      amfortas, this is very off-topic but I wonder if you’ve ever read a book called Earth Abides?

      For some reason it comes to my mind sometimes when I read your comments.

      Peace,

      BP
   2. earthling March 25, 2026 at 9:58 am

      Also a weird spring in my desert, with lush rocket greens shooting up to 4′ heights where there should be nothing but tough desert rabbitbrushy things getting started.

      This out-of-order thing started being noticeable in the South 20 years ago; when the lovely unified explosion of azaleas began to go totally out of whack, with some blooming very early, and out of sequence with all the other spring flowers. My botanist buddy explained some plants go by length of day, some by soil temperature. Which USED to happen in a bit of lockstep, but now all bets are off, and springs seem disjointed and a bit scraggly.
      1. NotTimothyGeithner March 25, 2026 at 11:50 am

         Do you remember the azaleas at the Masters?
         1. Henry Moon Pie March 25, 2026 at 6:27 pm

            Twenty years ago, they were putting ice on them around Amen Corner. Now, the best they can do is have one in a pot that’s blooming in the opening.

            It’s hard for me to see how anyone who gardens, hunts, fishes or just takes walks through the woods cannot see how things are changing. Perhaps those still resistant do not grasp that those little changes, little signs that things are off, portend dire outcomes up ahead as this huge system, that had been so stable during our little run, makes massive shifts toward a new equilibrium that will take no account of humans and their civilization.
      2. Wilfred Rondeau March 25, 2026 at 7:35 pm

         earthling
         Paople in my neighbourhood (southern Vancouver Island) have been cutting lawns all “winter” which has in fact been non-existent this year. The blossoms are all out on some trees in Chemainus, the nearest small town, and in Victoria. There is no scow on the local mountains, which bodes ill for summer drought, which we’ve had for the past several year. Even the rainfall totals have been below normal.
   3. curlydan March 25, 2026 at 11:37 am

      Kansas City was budding early like crazy earlier this month only to get hit by a few days of 15 degree lows which appeared to wipe out a lot of tree and flower buds–only to be blasted by 93 degrees 5-6 days later. The variability in temps is crazy lately.
   4. Utah March 25, 2026 at 8:29 pm

      I’m in Salt Lake City and noticed the fruiting trees all blossomed all at once. We went from buds open to the blossoms falling off in what felt like 3 days. I noticed the buds on trees and rose bushes about a month ago. I was so sad about it. I have a late April birthday and my birthday is usually colder than it is today, and will typically have the kind of spring we’re having right now.
   5. Thistlebreath March 25, 2026 at 10:18 pm

      Ditto in SoCal. Lilacs are out 4 weeks early, could still lose stone fruit trees to late frost. They flowered 3 wks early.
4. Adam1 March 25, 2026 at 8:09 am

   “Epistemic Collapse”

   I’ve read elsewhere that the fall of the Soviet Union wasn’t because of the Reagan era military build up which propaganda says was the cause, but from epistemic collapse fueled initial by the Afghan war but put into final collapse after all the lies surfaced over Chernobyl.

   If the war in Iran keeps on the track that it’s on and the US sends in ground forces which fail just as miserably, I could see an epistemic collapse in the US and possibly spreading to some other western nations.
5. The Rev Kev March 25, 2026 at 8:10 am

   “The London Ambulances Attack: Of Course It Was A False Flag”

   The more you go into this story, the more suss it is. For example, those ambulances were due for replacement so now you wonder if it was partly a insurance job as much as claiming it was an antisemitic attack. But lots of people in the UK were surprised that Jewish people not only have their own ambulance service but their own police as well. Wait, what?

   https://xcancel.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/2036017428409225517#m

   https://xcancel.com/Wren_Poltics/status/2036006241953022010#m

   The whole thing smacks of a state within a state. Normally I would not really care but it seems that they both get government funding.
   1. JohnA March 25, 2026 at 9:35 am

      The Starmer government has already supplied 5 brand new ambulances to replace the 4 that were arsoned – 2 of which were already scheduled for replacement. At the same time, donations to the Jewish charity appeal to replace the ambulances have now topped well over one million pounds, so it is a win/win for them. Just waiting for the claims adjusters to approve the insurance claim I suppose for it to become a win/win/win.

      Not sure where the government sourced the new ambulances literally overnight, as they are like gold dust in certain parts of the country, where wait times can stretch hours. Two men, aged 45 and 47, have been arrested, but no further details about background and potential motives, even though the arson was universally and instantly described as anti-semitic by the media, politicians etc.
      1. The Rev Kev March 25, 2026 at 10:04 am

         Do Jewish charities in the UK really need more help?

         https://xcancel.com/jvgraz/status/2036507751862640871#m
   2. ThirtyOne March 25, 2026 at 3:45 pm

      Italian lightning
6. Wukchumni March 25, 2026 at 8:11 am

   Sorry your house burned down. Here’s a $23,000 HOA bill — due next month Los Angeles Times

   Luke Carlson, an attorney who wrote a book about battling bad HOAs, was appalled when he heard about the lawsuit, which the HOA filed in March after a resident, whose home was destroyed in the fire, failed to pay mounting HOA dues, including the special assessment.

   “It seems somewhat outrageous,” he said. “This is a situation where a homeowner has lost everything, and I don’t see how aggressive litigation solves any problems.”
   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Was curious how many of the 6,700 homes lost in the Eaton Fire in Altadena had been rebuilt in the 14 months since, and it looks as of less than 20 on total.

   1 in 350
7. The Rev Kev March 25, 2026 at 8:22 am

   ‘Wyatt Reed
   @wyattreed13
   Incredible quotes in the deleted Telegraph article about the Lebanese Christians supporting Hezbollah.
   I wonder why they didn’t want their audience to read this 🤔’

   For those interested, that original Telegraph story is still on Yahoo! News-

   https://uk.news.yahoo.com/christians-hezbollah-unite-against-epstein-100000557.html
8. DJG, Reality Czar March 25, 2026 at 8:50 am

   Gleaned from this morning’s NY Times e-blast.

   Newsom Says He Regrets Remarks Comparing Israel to ‘Apartheid State’
   The California governor suggested that he had meant to refer to Israel’s potential future direction, not its current policies. “I revere the state of Israel,” he said.

   Revere?

   Brethren and sistren, what can this mean? Is this his twisty way of “Israel has a right to exist”? And as Francesca Albanese has pointed out, no state has “rights” to exist.

   PS: And super duper local, Daniel Biss, so much flailing:

   https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/daniel-biss-deserves-pro-israel-support/

   I think that he should remain as mayor of Evanston, being the mayor that Evanston deserves.
   1. Vicky Cookies March 25, 2026 at 10:22 am

      “No, I said ‘a part-TIDE’. I was making reference to the famous episode in the red sea.”

      You’ll note that further in his answer, he refers to the treatment of the West Bank as potentially problematic, though not of course that of Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, Iraq, &c.

      In the immortal words of Boris Johnson, what a “supine invertebrate protoplasmic jelly”. He’ll make a good presidential candidate, and I wish him the worst.
      1. DJG, Reality Czar March 25, 2026 at 10:42 am

         Vicky Cookies: That’s why I mentioned Daniel Biss, who won the primary in the House of Representatives district (Ninth) in which I still vote as an absent Chicagoan.

         But but but: In Biss’s case, his grandparents found Israel a refuge as survivors of the Holocaust. So he’s going to bring in his grandparents and waffle. And shouldn’t Palestinians find their own country a refuge from a genocide? And the two-state solution for people like Newsom and Biss will never mean shutting down all (and I mean all) of the illegal settlements around Jerusalem and in the West Bank. Burble burble but we can’t uproot 700,000 illegals from their homes…

         So Biss will be a reliable blob of gelatinous protoplasm, given that his current pronouncements likely are as bold as he can get before he succumbs to D.C.

         I lived in Evanston for a few years. Then I moved back to supposedly wildly corrupt Chicago. What I had seen in Evanston was a kind of syndrome: Too Many White People in One Place.
         1. Vicky Cookies March 25, 2026 at 11:50 am

            That’s a great framing (removing illegals). If they need help, perhaps we can send some of our ICE agents.
   2. The Rev Kev March 25, 2026 at 10:33 am

      All roads leading to political Washington go through AIPAC. It is just a fact of life. Sooner or later Newsom will make a speech there swearing loyalty to Israel to get his ticket punched.
   3. Ben Panga March 25, 2026 at 10:54 am

      “i tried mildly criticizing a genocidal ethnostate, but I didn’t inhale”
   4. FlyoverBoy March 25, 2026 at 2:24 pm

      As a local near Biss’s district, I followed this race with considerable interest. There’s no question Biss is a politician in the conventional toxic sense. But a full reading of the linked story really doesn’t portray Biss in the worst possible light, and AIPAC used skullduggery to support Biss only after they whiffed in a big-bucks effort to ram through the even harder-line Laura Fine for the seat.

      Now, Newsom is another kettle of sludge entirely. The idea that Team Blue is getting its speculum ready to ram him through as our only “choice” in 2028 is enough to make me graphically ill. Speaking as an Illinoisan, I’ve mostly been positively impressed by Pritzker’s work here. Even knowing his connections both to Israel and to Obama, I’m much more comfortable with him than with Newsom.
9. DJG, Reality Czar March 25, 2026 at 8:53 am

   Germany and Japan, closer military cooperation, per the Japan Times:

   “Speaking to The Japan Times, German Secretary of State for Defense Nils Hilmer said that as the strategic partners step up cooperation, they are looking at ways to facilitate larger and more complex joint military activities in each other’s territories.”

   What could possibly go wrong?
   1. The Rev Kev March 25, 2026 at 9:04 am

      Hey, maybe they could convince Italy to join them as well. It would be a sort of pact. They could even name it the Tripartite Pact 2.0-

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact
      1. DJG, Reality Czar March 25, 2026 at 9:32 am

         Rev Kev: Ahici.

         There is an excellent column by Alessandro Robecchi in today’s Fatto Quotidiano. Robecchi has a column on Tuesdays and is always witty and insightful. (I can’t find a reliable link.)

         He writes today about the motivation of many of the No voters in the referendum that just abrogated the law that tried to mess with balance of powers in the Italian constitution.

         Ma ci prendono per scemi?
         Do they think we’re that stupid?

         The consequences of the referendum have the Italians busy these days. A rightwing deputy / undersecretary at Justice was forced to resign. He was stupidly corrupt and, unfortunately, is from the Undisclosed Region, where his corruption is now having side effects. Another highly placed rightwinger was forced out of Justice. And the stupidly poke-you-in-the-eye corrupt minister of tourism is causing a bigger government crisis because she refuses to resign. (And face charges.) She, too, is from the Undisclosed Region (sheesh) although she’s better known for her famous collection of handbags.

         So: I write this having seen that the Italians hold Japanese culture and cookery in high regard. There is much genuine Japanese influence here in the Undisclosed Region.

         But at this point Italians are already questioning what NATO is up to, let alone imagining themselves in some Expanded Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, with rye bread.

         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere
         1. The Rev Kev March 25, 2026 at 10:13 am

            I was going through Italy back in the 80s and one thing that impressed me was that the Italians took their politics seriously. When pushed, they pushed back. I saw this with a confrontation with protesters and police in Rome. The police were lied up with a commander in front trying to look important while the protestors were making a helluva racked by banging metal garbage bins and the like. It kept things from getting boring there.

            At the same time I have to say that traveling in Italy was embarrassing back then. You would lob into an Italian city like Florence with your sweaty backpack and grungy traveling clothes. Then you would note that all the men, and I mean all the men, were snappy dressers who wore stylish clothes. It was like waking through a fashion house but showed me how things could be if we wanted them to be.
         2. Kouros March 25, 2026 at 3:45 pm

            The Grauniad just announce that the bag lady has resigned…
10. AG March 25, 2026 at 10:04 am

    re: EU vs. freedom of speech

    EU Commission threatens Biennale to cut funding if the organizers won´t ban Russian artists.

    NACHDENKSEITEN

    machine-translation

    Russians out! Otherwise, funding will be cut: EU Commission blackmails international art exhibition
    https://archive.is/vLWLr

    The EU also points to its sanctions regime.

    ” Member States, institutions and organisations must act in accordance with EU sanctions and avoid providing a platform to individuals who have actively supported or justified the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine .”

    The EU Commission does not hesitate to package its cancel culture in phrases about “diversity and freedom of expression”:

    ” Culture promotes and protects democratic values, fosters open dialogue, diversity and freedom of expression, and should never be used as a platform for propaganda. “
    1. Trees&Trunks March 25, 2026 at 10:35 am

       You see! This is why we must go to war with Russia to fight for our freedoms!
    2. bertl March 25, 2026 at 11:35 pm

       I love the way the EU Commission trains members, employees, parliamentarians and jurnalists to speak fluent Stupid with such vapid fluidity. It really has overtaken English as the dominant language of half the continent.
11. Ben Panga March 25, 2026 at 10:13 am

    Anduril, Palantir Are Developing Golden Dome Missile Shield’s Software (WSJ, archived)

    Skynet, but it hallucinates?
12. DJG, Reality Czar March 25, 2026 at 10:34 am

    The Global Warmer. Scorched earth on the great plains.

    What sprang to my mind is the Dust Bowl of the 1930s:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl#/media/File:Map_of_states_and_counties_affected_by_the_Dust_Bowl,_sourced_from_US_federal_government_dept._(NRCS_SSRA-RAD).svg

    Same underlying conditions? Misuse of the land? Mismanagement of water and irrigation? Monocropping? Overreliance on a few species that don’t remediate the soil?
    1. Michael Fiorillo March 25, 2026 at 11:02 am

       Major contributing factors to the Jackpot will be the drying up of the Colorado River watershed and the exhaustion of the Ogallalah Aquifer.

       I was traveling recently in the Imperial Valley of Southern California – the poisoned terminus of the American Century – and was flabbergasted to see the immense fields of alfalfa being grown in the desert. Absolute insanity.
       1. Tom Stone March 25, 2026 at 12:10 pm

          That Alfalfa being grown in California’s Central Valley is shipped to Saudi Arabia.
          It’s crazier than you thought it was.
          1. Michael Fiorillo March 25, 2026 at 5:45 pm

             Yes, and I’ve heard of Saudi-owned alfalfa farms in Arizona that irrigate their crops with underground water. Insanity, amplified…
    2. caucus99percenter March 25, 2026 at 11:20 am

       When I was a kid in the 1950s, children were shown a lot of films, books, and even a few TV shows that talked about how crop rotation and more use of contour plowing etc. were going to help prevent another Dust Bowl…

       Is soil conservation even a thing in the media anymore, or is the subject considered too boring and “low tech”?
       1. hk March 25, 2026 at 12:45 pm

          We are ruled by people who think that farming is eady: if you plant seed, stuff will come out, without you doing anything about it. (I think Mike Bloomberg said this, but can’t remember exactly).
          1. Kouros March 25, 2026 at 3:48 pm

             And you water it with Brawndo?
             1. CarlH March 25, 2026 at 6:48 pm

                Its got electrolytes.
13. upstater March 25, 2026 at 1:16 pm

    Syracuse University to axe nine majors as cost-cutting at the school continues syracuse.com

    Last fall, the College of Arts and Sciences paused enrollment for 18 majors. Changes are coming to 17 of those majors, according to an email CAS Dean Behzad Mortazavi sent to department chairs last week. Syracuse.com obtained the email through a university source.

    So much for humanities. Deep state programs (Maxwell School) and propaganda (Newhouse School) untouchable.
    1. Darthbobber March 25, 2026 at 2:38 pm

       Not analogous, since Wichita State is a state school and Syracuse isn’t.
       But yesterday I was looking at a long student newspaper piece on the school’s rising debt, and they gave a figure of 18% as the state’s share of costs. During my student days, that figure was near 80%.

       With student tuition covering 16%, this leaves nearly 2/3 of costs to be borne by the school’s various defense contracts and business ventures.
    2. mzza March 26, 2026 at 8:07 am

       Upstater, I don’t know if you were around Syracuse in the mod-90s when the conflict-resolution focused Maxwell School agreed to take $4 million from the DOD to begin the shift to “global conflict resolution” and the students and faculty who’d been proud of the fact that the Peace Studies department had been founded as a result of student protests were up in arms. There was a series of larger-scale demonstrations and some street theater (Syracuse had been active in the anti-war movement around the now-called Persian Gulf War — including a year+ of follow-up support work for the ANZUS Plowshares disarmament action at Griffiths Air Force Base — and an active sister-cities community who were early adopters of protests about the School Of The Americas, so the pumps were primed.

       The protests while of local note, did not succeed in a return to more a conflict resolution department more interested in the resolution of conflict.

       My memory at that the time is that only a few years before Syracuse University was celebrated for embracing neoliberal administration reforms and was one of the first four private universities to “turn a profit” on education, a model that led to the acceptance of more DOD funding and was the envy of many a US educational institution who would soon follow the lead.
14. AG March 25, 2026 at 1:44 pm

    re: insane NATO paper 2025

    This was linked in a Sept. piece on Nel Bonilla´s Substack (which I posted here last week.)

    Not Withstanding? An Upbeat Perspective on Societies’ Will to Fight
    https://www.ndc.nato.int/fr/not-withstanding-an-upbeat-perspective-on-societies-will-to-fight/

    This NATO “strategy” paper is among the most insane things I have read recently.
    Perhaps of interest to some of the NC-writers too.

    In short it´s presenting models and methods to make “modern-day, democratic societies” resilient and ready for war.

    This is Mussolini inverted.

    While Mussolini made no secret about the brutal nature of fascism to keep the bees busy – a grim but heroic demand for sacrifice – here all the progressive tropes of civil society are turned into qualities to harness for being ready to make war in a likeable, upbeat and democratic fashion.

    They propagate improvisation, laymanship and democratic structures i.e. down to top approach vs. the allegedly „outdated“ hierarchical top-down long-term planning as allegedly applied by „Russia and China“ in order to win war.

    It also includes such fun ideas as a “questionnaire” to what “type of thinker” you are to then suggest three archetypes:

    “The Strategist” – Henry Kissinger
    “The Planner” – Angela Merkel
    “The Influencer” – Kaja Kallas
    “A Mix of the three”

    Another set of role models refers to „concepts for gauging resolve“:
    Edward Luttwak
    Charles Moskos
    Carl von Clausewitz

    This is role-playing game design 101 for 12-year old children.

    Some quotes from dense 84 pages:

    „(…)Today’s elites often portray young people as apathetic, anti-militaristic, and disengaged from defence issues. (…) The real issue is not that Gen Z won’t fight – it is that they have not been given a vision of a future worth fighting for.(…)“

    „(…)In the 2000s (…) many politicians simply assumed their populations could not stomach conflict – that they were a “post-heroic” consumer society. Their response – wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, entered by democratic governments keen to downplay potential costs, and, fought by tiny forces using exquisite technology – bequeathed us a military posture that was distinctly post-heroic. We tend to remember that era as a time of popular naivety about war and the world. In fact, it was an era of elite cynicism about society. And that, more than anything, may explain today’s low willingness to fight.(…)“

    „(…)By contrast, the Falklands and Gulf War demonstrate how shrinking, post-industrial societies can leverage their technological and logistical strengths against mass industrial adversaries like Saddam Hussein’s million-strong army, contradicting the assumption of ‘post-heroism.’ Yet despite such precedents, strategy-making tends to entrench rather than challenge fears about societal fragility, locking in negative future outcomes. War-gaming and red-teaming, mainstays of strategy-making, tend to be carried out by small elite groups and seldom incorporate societal input. This narrows perspectives and gives intellectual weight to pre-existing anxieties about societal weakness, often justified by selective historical parallels.(…)“

    „(…)Highly technical planning processes can unintentionally unleash tribal madness. Planners may feel compelled to overstate their certainty about an adversary’s intentions. Their projections help win bureaucratic arguments but distort posture and signalling. Worse, adversaries adjust in response, creating a feedback loop of mutual escalation. Through seemingly objective observation, each side reinforces the other’s fears, locking into rigid paths driven more by sunk costs than actual need.(…)“

    The cluelessness is so obvious I lack words for it. Zero awarenss that in fact some of this is actually the other way around and the author unknowingly depicts NATO. The delusory view of the Iraq War is too embarrassing to address further.

    NATO has executed the essential points of this study word-by-word . Which explains – and this is the most appalling aspect of this entire item – the 2 million dead AFU.

    Obviously NATO has taken these idiotic assumptions for real and based their Ukraine operations on them.

    The number of actual footnotes from academic research is mindboggling too and reminds me of the beyond-any-sane-explanation of the 1600 p. US Senate report on Russiagate. Which probably 5 people have ever read.

    To overwhelm with footnotes appears to remain a feasible tactics by think tank writers to simulate expertise, relevance and accuracy – and also as a defense mechanism against serious scrutiny. Which apparently nobody has provided for this one.

    This series is being edited by none other than insane, crypto-racist German Florence Gaub, who reminds me of the notorious Nazi-bride/fateful love interest in INDIANA JONES – LAST CRUSADE, “ELSA”.
    1. Darthbobber March 25, 2026 at 2:30 pm

       Did you go down the rabbit hole by checking out the work cited in the footnotes? I often find when doing that that the passages cited often don’t actually support the point which they were cited as supporting. But you’re really not supposed to check.
       1. AG March 25, 2026 at 6:25 pm

          Had no time to look into the actual sources.
          But it´s the first thing that crosses your mind.
          On the other hand it´s most likely that they abused that literature the way you suggest.
       2. jrkrideau March 25, 2026 at 9:40 pm

          I remember reading an article on bicycle helmet use. One reference was about elbow pads when skiing.I was not sure of its relevance.
    2. Kouros March 25, 2026 at 3:58 pm

       Kaja Kallas The Influencer? She has the charisma of belly button discharges and nail clippings. I think the landscape of Hell depicted by Chuck Palahniuck in Damned best describes Ms. Kallas:

       Physical Landmarks: The landscape includes the “Dandruff Desert” and the “Mountain of Toenail Clippings,”
       The Atmosphere: A “roiling, surging ocean of scalding hot barf” fills the air with a constant sulfur smell, worse than garbage-laden streets

       Her charisma is as illusory as the Dark Matter, spoken about, but not actually detected.
15. neutrino23 March 25, 2026 at 1:55 pm

    One more way to beat the high gas prices: drive an electric car. We drive a plug-in Prius. We charge at home (lots of solar power on the roof) for free. We have enough solar that we are net positive for the year.

    I heard on the radio this morning of higher than $8 gas prices in some areas. Doesn’t bother me. At most, I buy one tank of gas a year. It is rumored that Toyota will come out with a new style electric vehicle next year. We will buy one of those and then be completely gas free.

    Our house is all electric. We don’t even have a gas line running to the house so no worries about the price of natural gas either.
    1. Yves Smith March 25, 2026 at 2:08 pm

       High gas prices SHOULD bother you.

       1. They will get built into the prices of nearly all of your goods and services

       2. Some businesses will fail
16. flora March 25, 2026 at 2:02 pm

    Judge Napolitano and frm British Ambassador Ian Proud.
    utube, ~22+ minutes.

    Ian Proud : Why Europe Rejects Aiding Trump on Iran

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I23s7SU7LQ4
17. Ann March 25, 2026 at 2:19 pm

    Scientists Just Broke the Solar Power Limit Everyone Thought Was Absolute

    A new “energy-multiplying” solar breakthrough could push efficiency beyond 100% and transform how we capture sunlight.

    So we just need lots of molybdenum?

    https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-just-broke-the-solar-power-limit-everyone-thought-was-absolute/
    1. Glen March 25, 2026 at 5:00 pm

       Last time I was up at Leadville, the Climax Mine was going strong:

       Climax mine
       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_mine

       And there are other large moly mines in America.

       And America supposedly has manufacturers making solar panels:

       10 American Made Solar Panels (2026 Manufactures List)
       https://www.allamericanmade.com/solar-panels-made-in-usa/

       So I guess in theory, this might actually be a good industry to encourage with selected tariffs, industrial policy, and incentives to help people buy American, but I get the feeling none of this happens unless the grift is aligned properly in DC.

       I.e., don’t hold your breath waiting for this one to happen. For some reason power generated by wind or solar is now a IDpol issue.
    2. fjallstrom March 26, 2026 at 9:51 am

       Note that it is the quantom yield that is over 100%, meaning that one photon produces more then one photon. It is not above 100% energy effiency (photons can have different energy), but it opens the door for better solar panels.

       Better popular article:
       https://interestingengineering.com/energy/quantum-yield-singlet-fission-ceiling-solar-cells
18. Alice X March 25, 2026 at 3:20 pm

    >The AI Industry Is Lying To You Edward Zitron

    Wowsers… 9,500 well considered words.

    Moi: Some benign future will be a simulation, the reality will be something else where the past can kicked down the road is crushed.
    1. flora March 25, 2026 at 6:29 pm

       Lying to us?
       I’m shocked, Shocked! / ;)

       per the movie Casablanca:
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxnpY0owPkA
19. Kouros March 25, 2026 at 4:02 pm

    I suspect China will be closely watching how the blockade of the Hormuz Straits by Iran on US/Israeli allies is going to affect Taiwan, as important datapints. I can even see China strongly encouraging Iran to not let any ships bound for Taiwan to pass through. And just like that, the Taiwan straits will narrow down a mile or two, figuratevly speaking…

    Also, China might tell Iran that dialogue is better than war, but Iran can ask for volunteers from the Chinese diplomatic corp(se) acting on behalf of Iran, plug in to an Iranian counterpart, see if they take the offer.
20. ChrisFromGA March 25, 2026 at 4:19 pm

    Apologies to @Wukchumni … I have a suggestion for the next episode of “Leavitt to Believers”.

    Karoline tries to crash a dinner party at a Chinese restaurant and gets embarrassingly escorted out by the owner. When asked why, the host (played by Xi Jinping) claimed that her boss (Donald) is an angry bore with bad table manners.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/25/trump-xi-beijing-china-summit.html
21. Ann March 25, 2026 at 5:28 pm

    US has caused $10tn worth of climate damage since 1990, research finds

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/25/us-climate-damage-research

    TSA official stresses record-high airport wait times as shutdown drags on

    The shutdown may force TSA to consider closing some airports until funding resumes, said Ha Nguyen McNeill, the agency’s acting administrator. She said multiple airports are experiencing callout rates higher than 40%, and air travelers are experiencing the TSA’s highest wait times ever.

    https://apnews.com/live/tsa-government-shutdown-ice-03-25-2026
22. Ann March 25, 2026 at 5:30 pm

    ‘Modern-Day Royalty’: 50 Billionaire Families Have Already Pumped Over $430 Million Into Midterms
    “Billionaires are on track to break their $1 billion midterm spending record,” said Americans for Tax Fairness.

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/billionaire-spending-2026-midterms
23. Ann March 25, 2026 at 6:42 pm

    EPA walks back mercury pollution standards for coal plants

    https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/25/politics/iran-kharg-island-us-military-ground-troops
    1. Jason Boxman March 25, 2026 at 9:20 pm

       With such disruption to the national gas market, we’re gonna need it!
24. AG March 26, 2026 at 12:40 am

    re: Theranos mini-series

    Just finished watching the HULU fiction series on Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, THE DROPOUT, second time actually. It´s available on the streaming site DISNEY+. Altogether I would recommend it.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dropout

    Holmes appealed to Trump for a pardon in December. Her sentence currently would end 2032.
    While Holmes is partially a caricature, George Shultz gets away way too positive. That might also be due to the excellent actor Sam Waterson playing his character.

    Same is true for the entire board of Theranos. It was most likely a decision to boil down the story which already is a bit bloated. But one wonders while watching how it is possible that this madness is going on without showing the other culprits in how they truly see things. And get away with it. (Was anybody of those rich men charged? I guess not. Which doesn´t exculpate her and Balwani too, I assume.) But without these guys going along nothing of this could have happened.

    NC archive has posts on Theranos of course. The latest was exactly a month ago.

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