Getting to Know the Know-It-Alls: On a new history of pedantry Hedgehog Review (Micael T)
Folk Influences on 20th-Century Classical Music Jim Samson (Micael T)
The Art of Looking The Culture Dump (Micael T)
What kind of language is Eridian, question? Linguistic Discovery (Micael T)
Immortality Jospeh Diaz (Micael T). Not quite right. I know three people who have had near-death experiences, and none of them is afraid of dying.
A Christian Case for Gossip JSTOR (Micael T)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
Scientists find immune cell linked to long COVID fatigue and symptoms Science Daily
Climate/Environment
Beavers can convert stream corridors to persistent carbon sinks Nature (Micael T)
Limiting global warming to 2C would not ‘rule out’ extreme impacts Carbon Brief
Another day, another preliminary record for the global sea-surface temperature, and so it goes.
What makes today interesting is that SSTs are once again above a 10,000,000-to-1 event, assuming no climate change.
The peak anomaly was 4,435,000,000-to-1, on January 9, 2024. pic.twitter.com/zfrlxu1a1m
— Prof. Eliot Jacobson (@EliotJacobson) March 25, 2026
Pakistan world’s most polluted country in 2025: Report Aljazeera
China?
The Man Ordinary Chinese Chose to Trust Pekinology
Write up of my visits to eleven Chinese humanoid robotics firms Chang Che (guurst)
South of the Border
Two humanitarian aid boats heading to Cuba have gone missing, Mexico says Guardian (resilc)
European Disunion
EU lawmakers support EU–US trade deal, with conditions attached Euronews (Micael T)
George Beebe: Iran War Weakens Ukraine & Europe Remains Irrational Glenn Diesen, YouTube
Germany Drafts Plan to Hit US Companies in Next Trump Clash Bloomberg. Micael T: “This is cute but you also need a spine and competence to implement such a plan. Of which contemporary German leadership have none.”
Germany’s Uniper warns EU methane rules will hit Europe’s energy supplies Financial Times
Prison prepares for 13-year-olds – warden buys weighted blankets to combat anxiety Arbetet via machine translation
Old Blighty
UK faces triple shock of inflation, weak growth and energy crunch News.co
UK food supply at risk of ‘catastrophic failure’ by 2030, report warns Farming UK
More than 6m vapes and pods discarded weekly in UK despite single-use ban, study finds Guardian (resilc)
Israel v The Resistance
📍Wadi Shek
26.3.26 – 09:00
A., Palestinian shepherd who has been tightly persecuted by the occupation forces, was arrested again while grazing on private Palestinian lands he rents, within a so called "firing zone". A herd of settlers owned by Tzuri Lilenthal from the illegal… pic.twitter.com/db7TyVxEuq— Jordan Valley Activists نشطاء غور الأردن (@JVActivists) March 26, 2026
🧵"We'll bring down the authority of evil and terror known as the PA. We will erase the lines and definitions and the letters [A, B, C areas]. We'll settle our land in all its territory."
Last Sunday, at the funeral of Hilltop Youth Yehuda Shmuel Sherman, Bezalel Smotrich gave a… https://t.co/rJfzDG4s9X pic.twitter.com/Fp04yAS5le
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) March 27, 2026
From yesterday, still germane:
🇮🇱Tel Aviv was plunged into darkness without electricity and water. They experienced a terrifying night due to the complete failure of the Iron Dome defense system and the Iranian bombing of a power plant, which caused widespread power outages.☀🌚 pic.twitter.com/E5L2B7qKKM
— Mr. Hass 💛 (@Lassegaf_1) March 27, 2026
To End the Iran War, Trump Must Divorce Israel American Conservative (resilc). As Joe Kent has been saying….
Israel tries to inflict the Gaza treatment on Iran:
The attempt to destroy Iranian knowledge
Yesterday, March 26th, the Isfahan University of Technology was targeted. Today, the 27th, the Tehran University of Technology also came under heavy bombardment.
These events reinforce my previous point that one of the primary… pic.twitter.com/pNbdsD5883
— Patricia Marins (@pati_marins64) March 28, 2026
Why Trump only has a month left to end the war Telegraph. Word of the low stockpiles is getting out.
Hormuz Chokehold and Iran’s Strategy of Economic Coercion Valdai Club (Robin K)
The Empire versus Iran: Which Side Are You On? Counterpunch (resilc)
New Not-So-Cold War
Trump extends certain US sanctions against Russia for one year TASS (guurst)
Starmer orders British commandos to seize Putin’s shadow fleet vessels Independent
Second Tanker Hit in Weeks as Black Sea Drone Strikes Russian Oil Cargo OilPrice
Trump shares article on Ukrainian plot to fund Biden reelection RT
Zakharova Tore Apart Ukraine’s Response To India’s Arrest Of Its Mercenaries Andrew Korybko
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
NYPD says it’s tracking online radicalization after failed Gracie Mansion attack Gothamist
Imperial Collapse Watch
Anduril Wants to Own the Future of War Tech. Mishaps, Delays, and Challenges Abound Wired (resilc)
Nonfiction Publishing, Under Threat, Is More Important Than Ever New Republic (Micael T)
At Pentagon Service, Hegseth Prays for Violence Against Those Who ‘Deserve No Mercy’ Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Trump 2.0
Trump Drops $1B to Kill 2 Wind Farms, Then Watches a Bigger One Go Online Gizmodo (Kevin W)
Defense Secretary Hegseth intervened to stop promotions of Black and female officers NPR (Kevin W)
US passengers enraged by hours-long lines and missed flights: ‘Absolutely insane’. Guardian. DHS blowback.
Immigration
Louisiana crawfish industry hampered by limits on foreign workers Associated Press (resilc)
Shortages
Panic buying prompts PM to reassure Australians over fuel supply BBC
Economy
Energy-Price Shock Hits a World Already Buried in Debt Wall Street Journal
US Winemakers and Beer Brewers Face an Existential Crisis: Plunging Alcohol Consumption Wolf Richter
Even wealthy Americans are souring on the economy as gas prices spike and stocks fall CNN (Kevin W)
Flights, fertilizer, mortgage rates: how the Iran war is raising more than just US gas prices Guardian
Mr. Market is Hypnotized
Finance Isn’t Prepared for an Iran Crisis. It Should Be Bloomberg. Official editorial.
US bond market shows signs of strain as Iran war sparks Treasury tumult Financial Times
The Next Financial Shock to Come From Trump’s War With Iran New Republic (resilc)
Antitrust
The Industry That Laughs at You | Live Nation Leaked Chats, Charlie Puth AI Deal, and Sony’s Royalty Robbery Vinyl Culture (Micael T)
AI
What Is Anthropic Thinking? Derek Thompson (Micael T)
Welcome to a Multidimensional Economic Disaster. The AI boom wasn’t built for the polycrisis Atlantic
The Pentagon’s AI Gatekeeper Holds Stock In Anthropic’s Rival Lever News (resilc)
Wittgenstein’s Apocalypse Commonweal (Anthony L)
Class Warfare
Class-warfare and Social Disorder in Wealth of Nations nesio13
Children’s screen time is a class issue Arbetaren via machine translation
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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“Panic buying prompts PM to reassure Australians over fuel supply’
The damn fools are talking about cutting the fuel excise tax (about 52.6 cents per litre) to make fuel cheaper and the government look good – while cutting government income. What they should be doing is putting a limit on how much fuel a person can buy to try to stretch out present supplies. This is not a serious government trying to deal with a once in a generation serious problem. Bah! Humbug!
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/03/war-on-iran-exorbitant-munition-spending-lack-of-success-iran-is-winning.html
He says Australia is in big trouble fuel wise.
Where I live a few stations have actually reduced their price as drivers flock to the cheaper locations. The stations make their profits from selling snacks and such and so lack of customers seems to have caused this.
FWIW, Middle Earth is also experiencing diesel supply issues. A compatriot in the moving business was in the lower South Island last week, and some gas stations were out of diesel, whilst others were limiting customers to $150 worth, which is approximately $86 Freedom Dollars at current exchange rates.
Anecdotal certainly, but given we are at the end of a very long supply chain and import all of our fuel (amongst other things), still alarming. Lembas bread anyone?
Australia is a sovereign currency issuer and is in no way dependent on tax receipts to fund spending. (cfi: https://socialjusticeaustralia.com.au/currency-sovereignty-understanding/). Australia is home to Prof Bill Mitchell and Prof Steven Hail, 2 of MMT’s best authors.
Link for “The Pentagon’s AI Gatekeeper Holds Stock In Anthropic’s Rival”
https://www.levernews.com/the-pentagons-ai-gatekeeper-holds-stock-in-anthropics-rival/
Added but thanks!
You can make it four who have had near death experiences, and while I don’t fear death I do fear some forms of dying.
Fire comes to mind, it was the first form of violent death I witnessed and it is an ugly way to die.
Brief summary of long article from long ago in The Anderson Valley Advertiser.
If you are at peace with yourself a near death experience, and perhaps death itself, is like heaven. If not, it is terrifying.
How interesting. I also had an NDE in 2021, and it brought me tremendous peace. I actually had the sense during the experience that I was once again in the presence of my old best friend, who’d been killed years ago.
The AVA is one of the greatest newspapers in the USA. Apparently only digital now. It’s worth a look-up.
Are Near-Death Experiences Real?
Dr. Greyson, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, will discuss numerous aspects of near-death experiences (NDEs). Dr. Greyson’s talk will encompass the challenges in researching NDEs and establishing their reality; the consistent cross-cultural features of NDEs; proposed psychological and physiological explanations for NDEs; the after-effects of NDEs, and implications of NDEs for our understanding of mind and brain; and our understanding of life and death.
https://youtu.be/5KhtRnbl8ZE?si=pRvStJ8XNe9WnpMS
Watching through the window as the aircraft nosed over into the crevasse and began to fall, and realizing when the darkening snow went completely black, that it would be the end, and seeing even the individual snow crystals melt against the windshield, right before the big bang, I was afraid of the pain, then realized I would no longer feel it, and relaxed — then my mind was gone. (The helicopter crash scene in The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou where the helicopter falls toward the sea, and Zissou moans, “Oh no, this is really going to hurt…” was uproarious when I saw it after surviving my crash.)
Death hasn’t been a fear, since then, just something that is there. Like you say, there are some forms you really want to avoid — I think of it as wanting to manage the final end. Keeping a clear, unpanicked mind to the end is something I work for. I also think, “Not today!” Of course, things do come up, so you have to be ready.
I believe that we are now in the long rollout of WW3 (I expect we will ditch the Roman numeral approach to our world wars as they did with the DSM-5 because, like the Simpsons episode ages ago, we’ve generally lost our ability to read them.) WWII had a longer on-ramp than is generally known with Japan and China beginning in 1937. I am guessing some will likely mark the beginning of WW3 as 2022 Ukraine and Russia with the official start marked as the assassination of Ali Hosseini Khamenei. Watching the chaos monkey Zelensky doing the Gulf state tour, the Gulf States going all in with their abusive partner because he’s sorry and brought flowers, Uganda (?) doing whatever it’s decided to do and the Houthis announcing their announcements every few days, those who have always said WW3 would start in West Asia called it.
Certainly see a WW3 outcome as one of many awful possibilities. In addition to precursor conflicts in the Ukraine and West Asia, I would add a number in Africa, maybe even South America. Further the ongoing sanctions war.
There also seems to be an uptick in seizures and attacks on Russian tankers. Provocations primarily by NATO/UK. It is ironic that the EU and Asia are desperate for energy but I guess not willing to cooperate in the face of shortages and economic collapse.
You might be right; I panic bought a bunch of groceries yesterday, for what little good that might do. Americans have no idea what an economic calamity is coming.
This feels like the early days of the ongoing Pandemic, when it was abundantly clear that we’re all screwed, but it’s still like February 2020 and most people are still not paying any attention, except to gas prices in this case because of the obviousness of its cost.
Regular is $6.10 in Santa Rosa CA this morning.
This has me curious, it would be great to read the thoughts by commentators of what is best to stock up on depending on where/what country a person lives in. Obviously fuel supplies is of concern already in some nations. Plenty so far in the Us but you pay through the nose for it.
I have urged my friends to double their prescriptions so as to provide more of a buffer zone. (Pretty sure the supply chains will tighten there.)
I have been trying to figure out “natural” analogs for my hypertension meds so as to be able to substitute when the medical pharmacology supply chains seize up.
I have discovered that “Prepping” is really a state of mind. One has to develop habits that allow one to live longer on limited inputs.
Growing a vegetable garden, of whatever size, is a great help both physically and psychologically.
Autarky is a State of Mind.
I would get books by herbalists and see what might do
Are these bloodthiners, as in to reduce clot risk, or do they actually lower blood pressure?
Aspirin as you know is a blood thinner. If your stomach will tolerate it (most people’s will) 1 adult aspirin does a lot. I would NEVAH take that in connection with a Rx blood thinner, though.
There are some dietary supplements that are touted as lowering blood pressure. I would search and then check for studies. A lot of dietary supplement producers flog studies too small scale to prove anything. But garlic looks like a fine fallback:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6966103/
Also with herbs, quality of production matters. I would spend up here to buy from a company that has a good reputation with sourcing and preparing its herbs.
Thank you for this. The upcoming supply chain problems concerning pharmacologicals are a little mentioned aspect of the present exercise in devolving public health. I’m with you on the aspirin connection. Also, garlic is our friend indeed. I’m also using niacin and nattokinase at present. (That is more of a long term experiment.)
As has been the experience of many commenting here, my medicos have slowly but surely ‘introduced’ me to beta blockers, anti-platelet clotting drugs, nitrates, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin 2 receptor blockers, and others. My continuing struggles with the medical “establishment” about statins has already been told here.
I would fit the joke about being a medical dartboard.
We were bought up to trust our doctors. Somewhere along the way, the medical establishment sold us out. Finding a medico with integrity has become a new Holy Grail Quest for most of us.
“Patient, heal thyself” sounds like a trending Neoliberal Medical saying.
I have found that many companies are quite opaque about the sourcing of their herbs. It has almost been hit or miss in this for me. I now “eagerly await” the wonders to be encountered by ‘consumers’ as AI Slop enters the food and supplements marketplace. I thought that hucksters and shysters were bad enough. Now Silicon Valley says: “Here, hold my small batch low calorie craft beer.”
I have learned from Phyllis to read the entire ingredients list on the bottle or package. That’s how I discovered that I had a strong adverse reaction to Monosodium Glutamate. Products that had high MSG content gave me mild headaches and raised my blood pressure after ingesting while non-MSG containing recipes did not.
Simple ingredients list guide: https://www.ingredientdetective.com/blog/how-to-read-ingredient-labels.html
Thanks again and, as always, stay safe.
Per Ambrit
>I have discovered that “Prepping” is really a state of mind. One has to develop habits that allow one to live longer on limited inputs.
Growing a vegetable garden, of whatever size, is a great help both physically and psychologically.
That is so true about the gardening.I would offer to anyone that if you do not have space for your own garden, perhaps there is a local community garden with space available pr maybe you have a neighbor or friend that you can barter your labor for some of the harvest. We all have some thing to offer each other.
There are a lot of natural remedies out there. Between my better half and my acupuncturist who is very knowledgable about Chinese herbal medicines that has and continues to be helpful.
I live in a condo and have bad knees, so gardening is out. And that means storage area is limited too. Plus I have not had success even with house plants. But I appreciate the thought.
Anything that helps get the blood moving should help alleviate blood vessel tension. Cloves are great for this, but Capsaicin is the best. You can gel-capsule hot chili powder to get large doses past your mouth. It opens little blood vessels through the entire body so everything flows easier.
Also, anything diaphoretic (increasing sweating) like Yarrow or Elder flower should have a subtle beneficial effect.
I do not recommend you try it, but a powerful herbal hypertension medication comes form False Hellebore (Veratrum viride), common in eastern and western parts of North America. Used – very cautiously – by First Nations, and by Western medicine until the 1960s when it was replaced by modern chemicals that can be dosed more reliably.
The inner bark of the root is strongest, and a slight overdose will reduce your blood pressure to nothing. With careful use by a trained practitioner, however, it has saved countless lives through history.
Thanks. News I can use. I’ll do my due diligence.
During WWII, nobody could buy tires and all steel was diverted to the war effort. My grandfather’s car was up on blocks until VE day at least. He was also out of work (electrical engineer) the whole time and the family moved to a crappy little farm from a place in the city. Lots of bartering and eating trapped animals. Never got back to the baseline from that. Many such cases.
I wonder who the main combatants of WW3 would be?
If things really get going the United States will likely have to bow out early due to lack of weaponry, transport capacity, and mobilized personnel. Which leaves who against whom?
I don’t think Europe can last long against Russia. I don’t think a Gulf State-Israeli coalition can last long even if it had no outside enemies.
Of course, I assume when you say WW3 you mean a longish land/sea war, not just a quick escalation to Armageddon.
A few weeks ago I ran across a reference to a Russian historian who referred to the period between 1914 and 1945 as the Second Thirty Years War. There is something to be said for that. Unfortunately I recall neither the name of that historian nor where I read about him.
@Ex-PFC Chuck at 12:23 pm
FYI Eric Hobsbawm, the British historian, also said WW1 and 2 were one war.
Even earlier. War for Manchuria started in 1931.
War for Donbass started shortly after the coup in Kiev fomented by Cookies Nudelman et. al. in 2014.
If you dump the sanctimonious euphemesim “sanctions” and call it by the correct term economic warfare. then the roots of the impending world war(at least IV or V by my count) can be followed even further back.
It gets silly if we keep tracing events back to when X “really” began–I can use a few tons of historical facts and a lot of sophistry to “show” that the war in China “really” began in 1905, 1895, 1592, some time in 7th, 6th, 5th, or 1st century, both CE and BCE–because I’ve seen people do it. The truth is that history never stops: everything has some old roots, going back years, decades, centuries, or millenia, or at least some retrospectively made up versions thereof. When X “really began,” as far as I’m concerned, is the stuff of propaganda. We should always accept it as given that things are always more complicated than not, but be cognizant that not all complications are all that important or even relevant.
1931 was the start date if you wish to pin it on the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, followed by the Italian invasion of Abyssinia in 1935.
But arguably WWI didn’t really end in 1918. In the Middle East theatre, it ended in 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne settling the Ottoman Empire’s fate as Turkey after the original Treaty of Sèvres had been rejected by the Turkish street in 1920; or even later at the turn of 1925-26, when the British sponsored Ibn Said to seize Mecca and Medina from her erstwhile ally the Hasgemite kingdom of Jordan, after the Hashemites opposed the British and French mandates in Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia arising from WW1.
The Turkish and Hashemite oppositions to the WW1 dispensation are the first reactions to WW1 and so might be considered the beginning of WW2.
The Russian theatre continued in armed conflict arising from the civil war and its Western sponsors until 1923, when the Soviet army retook far Eastern Russia. The Japanese army had invaded in support of the White Russians.
You could say that the War on Russia and its objective of Balkanising Russia actually began in WW1 by Japan and the Entente Powers and has never finished to today. The war on the Ottoman Empire also continues. It may be that the peace on the Western Front was unrepresentative and deceptive and that in reality it really was one continuous war from 1914 until whenever….
One could trace the current mess between Russia and Ukraine to the Crimean War, 1812, 1612, the Union of Brest, the Northern Crusades, Trajan’s campaigns in Dacia, Jason and the Golden Fleece, or Agamemnon sacrificing his daughter before the Trojan War. With enough sophistry mixed in, they would all be “right,” too, within a certain definition of “right,” that is. But, in the end, does such an exercise actually achieve anything? In the end, this just becomes absurd contest that “proves” X has been special or Y has been evil since time immemorial or something. It feels a bit odd for someone who is a sort of professional historian to say this, but most of history is bunk. The important skill is knowing which parts are not bunk and why (and why the parts that are bunk aren’t all that important.)
Re, To end the war, Trump must divorce Israel, this would require Trump to renege on his “contract” with madam Adelson and her $200 million investment. Of course, Trump’s out is to claim–what is becoming more and more popular–force majeure…
Too much speculation over Trump’s psychological proclivities, incompetence of current Cabinet level Secretary(s) and “intelligence” of US and Mossad: just keeping to objective factors over the last 60 years leads inexorably to the current situation. Under the guise of exceptionalism and isolationism fairy/myth tales were told not only to US public but the world at large. Arrogance, hubris, control of the world through US gold reserves, then the Euro-dollar, then the petro-dollar and the consequent overconfidence to establish a presence all over the world (800 bases) neatly dovetailed with the US narrative of the “global policeman” and market of last resort (his fairy tale started in the 1970s) warped not only the US public but the intelligentsia in control of finance and the government. As the Latin Americans put to graffitti a slogan in the 1970s. — it is time for Yankee to go home. Though now with its tail between its legs. US shutter your bases and rape and pillage closer to home: the Western hemisphere — that will be the net effect of starting a war with Iran.
You need to stop making things up.
The Eurodollar system had absolutely nothing to do with US designs. A lot of policy-makers were opposed at the time to the US not taking the regulatory steps to stop what US banks were going.
The “petrodolar system” is a myth. Oil trading had alway been denominated in dollars. It NEVER came up in the negotiations with the Saudis (I read the State Department declassified archives, which include notes from all the meetings with Saudi negotiators). If the Saudis had asked to be paid in their currency, they would have paid FX fees to invest in the US, which had the deepest and cleanest capital market. European states like France and Germany and the UK had only small capital markets with poor disclosures and investor protections and limited ability to absorb Saudi capital exports.
The shift of the US policy from merely beating up on developing countries that looked too Commie into hubris came with the dissolution of the USSR. We were able to do diplomacy back then and were even not bad at it.
I agree completely that we need to go home but I am not having you abjectly misrepresent how we got here. For instance, Larry Wilkerson recounts how Colin Powell fought and lost over the US putting bases in the Middle East. He thought it was a disastrously bad idea.
You are what Gore Vidal referred to as: “a mere entertainer”. Your shtick is growing thin.
Trump could always say, “Okay, that’s your $200 millions worth. I’m stopping now.” But, of course, he won’t. But, after all, our expenses on this war must have gone well over $200 million after the first couple weeks.
If the founders of the US could witness this future, they would be astounded that we aren’t already in the middle of a new revolution. Every tyranny they warned against has been reimposed on the people of the US.
Not a big problem, Trump is famous for bankrupting people who invest in his ventures, then skating away. And Ms. Adelson has nothing but her own gullibility to blame.
“…force majeure..” to be countered with Force Minor, as in underage boys and girls pictured in ‘provocative’ poses with various of the “High and Mighty.”
Epstein casts a long shadow.
It would be easy for Trump. Just like going bankrupt.
‘Mr. Hass 💛
@Lassegaf_1
🇮🇱Tel Aviv was plunged into darkness without electricity and water. They experienced a terrifying night due to the complete failure of the Iron Dome defense system and the Iranian bombing of a power plant, which caused widespread power outages.☀🌚’
I was just imagining tens of thousands of Israelis sitting & huddling in their underground bomb shelters in Tel Aviv – when suddenly the lights go out.
And here I was thinking that this could be a difficult day to find something to smile about.
Readers added context to this video
This video was recorded on March 4, 2026 and depicts US-Israeli airstrikes in Tehran, Iran.
….
I will note that this twitter account is full of genAI crap.
I’ve been finding that a lot of “reader added context” is overt disinformation. Not sure if it is true in this specific context, of course, but people, especially certain classes of twixtter readers, lie.
Re: “NYPD says it’s tracking online radicalization…”:
The Gothamist article contains a link to NYPD’s published Technology Policies, which is an eye-opening review of all the methods used to… …let’s just say, manage the population. Of particular interest, many of the policies were modified to remove language that says the specific technology does not use AI. The reason given is that “Public comments highlighted a lack of industry-standard definitions for artificial intelligence and machine learning.”, but this just glosses over the fact that the policy now includes the use of AI and ML.
Outside of the AI point, NYC residents and visitors are well advised to look through the list and associated links, and for those outside NYC, it is worth considering whether your local police department has disclosed the looooong list of tools available to them.
Direct link to the policies: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/about/about-nypd/policy/post-act.page
“UK food supply at risk of ‘catastrophic failure’ by 2030, report warns”
Without a reliable source of fertilizer in the coming months, that ‘catastrophic failure’ could well be here by the end of this year. But ‘declining soil health, loss of pollinators and pressure on water supplies’ will just make things much worse over time. It makes you wonder if we will be seeing a return to ‘Victory gardens’ once more. And whether local councils will allow them.
I suspect the UK won’t be alone here. The emerging hyper- instability of climate is going to put a hurt on yields across the board, fertilizer shortages or not.
Pineapple growers here in Australia report being unable to prevent natural flowering in the last three years. They usually artificially induce flowering to suit their markets better but the variability of the day/night temperature splits now is defeating their planning leading to smaller fruit and worse ripening.
Also, of all countries, the UK and France have the best natural conditions for temperate cropping. Not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, not too dry, rich and stable soils. You can grow a lot more wheat per acre in the UK without fertiliser than in Iowa. We have some of the world’s highest crop yields (we just don’t have counties the size of countries!).
We are obviously not self sufficient in food year round. I don’t think we could be even with rationing. But my guess is we can live OK through the summer months and we’d need to sort out imports and rationing for winter.
Seems to me this food supply risk will hardly be isolated to the UK.
We live on a closed – loop spaceship.
Scarcity is really only engendered by and applicable to the apex monkey.
“Interesting Times” has lost its novelty, ain’t we probably ain’t seen nothing, yet.
Any suggestions if or how Hollywood would go down if the PetroDollar, ISR arms manufacturers or ME funds lose their grip/get exhausted?
“What kind of language is Eridian, question?”
It’s an interesting article showing the difficulty of understanding another language in a First Contact situation. And having to get it right. Just yesterday I came across a clip showing the same difficulty that was taken from the film “Arrival”-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIuMmAXz8PM (4:18 mins) – from about the 3:00 minute mark.
– ‘The Empire versus Iran: Which Side Are You On?’ – Counterpunch
This is a coherent and comprehensive example of what I’d call the “Counterpunch” worldview: “It’s the Empire, stupid. And it’s ‘structural’.” In this view,
“Even as volatile and idiosyncratic a ruler as Trump discovers that his leadership role is largely defined by the system that encompasses it. The fact that this president is a flag-waving ethno-nationalist with fascistic inclinations makes his transformation from would-be peacemaker to imperialist warmaker highly likely. But the transformation and the wars that attend it are not just manifestations of Trump’s personality and ideology; they are also products of the Empire’s deep structure.”
So individuals, like Presidents, have limited power to affect the structural imperatives of “the system” – the Empire. And so do client-states like Israel. This is an extended argument against the so-called “wag-the-dog” argument that Israel, or the Israeli lobby, or their neocon fifth-column, are the major instigators of our current disastrous policy. Those who believe this are “slow-witted” – or perhaps worse:
“No, the tail does not wag the dog. The dog-wagging theorists would do well to consider the remark often attributed to the Austrian socialist, August Bebel: “Antisemitism is the socialism of fools.” Just because the Zionists have mis-defined and weaponized antisemitism by equating it with anti-Israelism doesn’t mean that it has ceased to exist, and the idea that an all-powerful Jewish State and Jewish Lobby are dictating policies of war and peace to the world’s most powerful empire is right out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
Hmm.
Though I was quite irritated at this statement, I should say that the article as a whole makes a number of good points. At the macro, 30,000 ft. level, there is much truth this author’s comments about the system of Empire. But “structures” and “institutions” have no agency apart from the individuals and groups who run them. Within this “system” there are various factions with competing material and ideological interests who are vying for power. Not all capitalist “oligarchs” in this “system” benefit from our current Middle East disaster. So why is it happening?
That question illustrates why we have to bring our theoretical understandings down a notch or two when considering real historical events. I had just read this article by Jonathan Cook yesterday. He provides a very useful corrective to this piece indicated by its title: “Does the tail wag the dog? How both sides are missing the bigger picture.’ As the subhead says: “Binary thinking in the argument over whether the US or Israel is driving the illegal war on Iran obscures far more than it illuminates. The truth is the dog and the tail are wagging each other.”
https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/does-the-tail-wag-the-dog-how-both
Thanks for taking on the article and the often dubious “Counterpunch point of view” so I don’t have to. The truth is that while Israel is yet another settler colonial state it is an almost uniquely bad version of same and also 100 or more years out of date with the age of Empire. We are now in the decadent phase of empire re-enactors and Trump with his imaginary world view is certainly one of those. Too bad for them and most especially for us they missed the real deal back in the 19th century.
No Trump no war….it’s as simple as that. Historical inevitability is not what is going on here. Call it psychological inevitability instead.
I have serious doubts about “no Trump no war.” Things might have unfolded a bit differently if the Word-Salad-Lady had somehow gotten elected, but the Biden-Harris administration definitely gets full credit for the Ukraine war, and the level of Israeli genocidal expansionism supported by the Democrats would have eventually developed into open conflict.
Maybe the Iran War would have been a little less embarrassing under Democrats, but I don’t think the big picture results would have been much different. We’ve been on a clear path to wider wars under both factions of the uniparty since Clinton adopted “do what we say or we’ll bomb your infrastructure” as the backbone of U.S. foreign policy in the late stage of the Yugoslav Wars.
Obama, Dubya, Biden didn’t bomb Iran. Israel needed a stooge–perhaps complete with kompromat.
And the Israelis are just as delusional and vain as Trump. Do you think all this is helping them? They are killing their international support.
They, as in the Ultra Zionists, don’t need International support. “They” have Divine support. (That’s the Narrative they believe.)
I agree with albrt.
This war would have been started by Kamala too.
The individual politicians make no difference.
As the joke goes: “It doesn’t matter who we vote for, we get John McCain.”
Which, of course, is just a glib deflection from the no-joke original:
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.”
–Emma Goldman
thanks
also, maybe a bit related Aurelien´s latest
Plans, Platforms And Projectiles.
The longer-term meaning of the Iran war.
Mar 25, 2026
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/plans-platforms-and-projectiles
p.s. “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” 🤔🙃
Plunging alcohol consumption.
Have people just lost their lust for life?
I wonder if it’s people smoking weed or vaping and getting stoned instead of drunk. I haven’t seen the Canadian alcohol consumption stats but if you walk around Toronto and the GTA you will see all manner of new marijuana stores. Sometimes it feels like these are the only new stores you see these days (besides the corporate chain stores). Probably not a healthy trend. Legalization was probably a mistake
Legalization was a major plus for me. I had four surgeries through the course of cancer treatment, the last being a major remodel of my rear end that took a year to heal to the point that it wasn’t always painful. I was able to get through it all with Tylenol and legal pot–no opioids. I count that as a plus.
I think it’s quite difficult to argue that cannabis causes anything close to the social and health harms of alcohol. It has some of both, but I don’t think there’s much correlation between domestic abuse and pot for example.
As we used to say in high school: When you’re mellow, you’re yellow.
I suspect it’s more to do with the decriminalisation of cannabis and the associated surge in use. Possibly also the increased use of prescription anti anxiety/depression drugs.
Whenever there is a significant drop in alcohol use in a society where it’s well embedded in the culture, it’s usually because an alternative has become cheap, available, or fashionable. There was a significant drop in drinking among young people in Europe in the late 80’s/90’s when ecstasy and related party drugs boomed with the rave scene. When that scene died off, back came alcohol. Cheap cocaine availability has tended to have the same effect.
Yeah, you see how stupid you become from cannabis, e and other drugs. When you get your shits together, you come back to alcohol.
This is just my personal experience anecdatat, but . . .
I found reading while having used cannabis to be intensely pleasurable. I found reading while having used alcohol to be intensely irritating.
Cannabis saved my life. Cannabis made me a genius. Cannabis was very very good to me.
I’ve known many mean drunks in my day, but no mean potheads.
Of course, the much stronger cannabis strains available today might have different effects on the Terran human body compared to the seemingly benign varieties available to us years ago.
Better living through science?
Stay safe.
Lol, that scene didn’t die off, PK, it’s just that everybody first got religion – don’t drink and drop pills, it spoils the euphoria – to the extent clubs sold nothing but water and then double-dropped so long and hard they became serotonin-rush tolerant at which point, as one nation, thought fuck it! This would be even better on heavy rotation with a vodka red bull, twenty fags and an enormous reefer.
The UK and Ireland leapt from recreational drugs into polydrug abuse, including alcohol, to the point where now every bar is full of people of all ages “on the bag”, doing keys of coke and/or ket while sinking quiet mid-week pints. My circle spent the nineties and 2000’s doing that shit – it’s Wednesday, let’s go to the local and have a cheeky half and a pint…. Later generations have just cottoned on!
There was a recent article that the straitlaced Gen Z are just slow developers. All part of the increasing neoteny and failure to launch of each generation since WW1.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/05/gen-z-binge-drinking-triples-since-teens
re: PlutoniumKun
“Whenever there is a significant drop in alcohol use in a society where it’s well embedded in the culture, it’s usually because an alternative has become cheap, available, or fashionable.”
Usually, perhaps, but there are exceptions. For example, here in Finland — certainly a society where alcohol use is ‘well embedded in the culture’ — there is a more-or-less continuous roller coaster but not in alcohol use, per se.
Here, anything stronger than 8% alcohol (thus, wine and spirits) can only be bought at the state-monopoly Alko shops. (Until not too long ago the limit was 5%). From time to time, the social/health voices will increase their clamour about the dangerous effects of alcohol and the government will respond by raising the (already very high) tax. That will result in a drop in Alko sales — but then people just go to easily reachable places such as Estonia, where the tax is much lower, and bring back roller-trolly loads or even a full boot in their cars. Since it is tax-paid (as opposed to ‘duty free’), and from an EU country no less, any reasonable argument that it is for personal consumption must be accepted by Customs.
So it is in fact a goose / golden egg situation. Alko tax rises, lowering (local) sales but not, proportionately, consumption. Alko revenues drop, affecting state coffers, to counter which the tax is relaxed, allowing increased sales (and thus consumption, without the bother of ‘booze cruises’), prompting a new round of social/health warnings. Over and over again.
Fortunately, people have started prioritizing long-term health over short-term pleasure. That’s a good thing!
It’s the opposite: people no longer need nasty boomer drugs to have a good time. I’m absolutely delighted to see the coming end of this anti-social, degenerate drug of choice of the most selfish generation.
Boomers are amateurs when it comes to drinking compared to their parents, Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation.” The drinking patterns depicted in Mad Men were quite accurate based on my personal observations. And they drank hard liquor, not beer or wine.
My mother belonged to a book club with eleven other ladies in the small farming community where I grew up. My parents always hosted the annual Christmas get-together for this group of 24, and when I was in college, I tended bar because I was home for the holidays. They were almost all bourbon drinkers–there was a small distillery in our town–and my dad always purchased a case of quarts of the local drink. Highballs were the most popular drink, and the men all preferred a 50/50 mix, while the ladies were fine with a shot per glass. The case was pretty well gone after that party.
My parents and their friends could drink with the best of them, but they were topped by my dad’s boss. At least once a year, they were invited to join him in going to a Big Eight football game that would be a 2 or 3 hour drive from home. Eldon would drive 85 miles an hour down the interstate with one hand on the wheel and the other on an open bottle of bourbon. If it hadn’t been more or less required attendance, they would never have gone because it was a terrifying experience.
Wow, that Mad Men drinking is for serious?
I can’t; I’ve tried, I am just hungover the next day and have trouble sleeping. I don’t know how people managed it and accomplished anything in life.
I grew up with my father – a senior consulting surgeon – disappearing to the pub at lunchtime with his colleagues for aperitifs, bringing them back home unannounced for lunch – my mother having to do something inventive with an egg – drinking some bottles of claret, then a brandy with the cigar and…. back for the afternoon clinic. Everybody drank and drove. And smoked.
I wonder how 70’s Britain functioned.
WWII likely has a big role in the smoking and drinking of that generation. You smoked all day, and drank at every social occasion. Dad could drink a pint of hard liquor after work, and get up next morning and go to work as an attorney. When he got cancer, he stopped smoking, cold, after fifty-five years. Even cut back to just white wine.
He couldn’t sleep if he didn’t drink, otherwise the dreams from the Bougainville Campaign would come back — people’s bodies exploding, comrades gunned down, killing the enemy at close range — and he’d wake up! You had to get some sleep somehow, or you couldn’t accomplish anything in life.
From Energy-Price Shock Hits a World Already Buried in Debt
Heh. WSJ wants you to know price controls were the problem in the 1970s, not a lack of supply.
(bold mine)
Interesting way to reverse causality.
It’s amazing whatever Wolf Street is smoking, that’s for sure. He really really hates any mention that Americans aren’t doing absolutely amazingly well, better than ever.
(bold mine)
I can only assume Wolf does quite well himself financially. Truly blinded by averages and possessed of a deep rage if anyone questions otherwise.
Oh yes. It’s the old “average” versus the “median” quandary.
I prefer to look at the total wealth distribution because I theorize that in general, prices rise to the highest feasible level. As long as there are enough “rich” people to maintain an industry in minimal health, the prices will reflect that.
Never underestimate greed.
Funny he specifically mentions married couples, which are the family formation with the highest income. The median household income, BTW, is around 84k.
Canada and South American nations near free-trade agreement with April talks
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/politics/2026/03/27/canada-and-south-american-nations-near-free-trade-agreement-with-april-talks/?taid=69c7c2f2d12de60001c6971b
World War III: After reading The Pacific War:1931-1945 written, IIRC by a Japanese, I have dated the start of the second world war from there. It gradually expanded to the 1932 bombing of Shanghai, Hitler’s Rhineland invasion, Spanish Civil War, Italy’s Ethiopia adventure, Anschluss, Sudetenland and finally in 1939 war in Europe which kicked off the main event ending in 1945, but continuing regionally until the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. The Cold War had its moments but MAD kept it in bounds. 2014, the Maidan Coup, is actually a good starting point. Think of it as the beginning of a more active –kinetic is the word of choice isn’t it — US/combined West/Empire campaign to bring down Russia as phase I with China as the finale. The war is fought off the battle field for the most part. Finance war, commodity war, petroleum and gas war,cyber war, proxy armies where useful. Then moving to a higher and more direct level in 2022 and the present crescendo in West Asia with results which look more ominous for the entire world as the days go by. The presence of nuclear weapons puts a damper on direct confrontations among the major players — at least I hope it will — so it will continue as a war by other means many of which we are not used to calling war. Where and when will it end? What will the maps look like? How terrible will it be? I should like to live long enough to know even the preliminary answers to those questions. In William Gibson’s fictional world it is called the Jackpot. It lasts for a long time, a lifetime and more longer. Is that what we are facing? I rather think it might be, but then again there are the next month or two to live through first.
unfortunate that the second link today, “Folk Influences on 20th-Century Classical Music”, did not mention Louis Moreau Gottschalk – admittedly he was a 19th century composer, but since Chopin is mentioned so should Gottschalk – he was appreciated as a pianist by Chopin, Franz Liszt and Charles-Valentin Alkan – many of his pieces have echos of field songs, familiar to most of us, within the pieces – from what i’ve read he traveled worldwide giving concerts and was a superstar of his era – died in Rio 1869 – yellow fever –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Moreau_Gottschalk#Works
Louis Moreau Gottschalk – La Savane Op. 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDbeuvFzPkY
What Is Anthropic Thinking? – Derek Thompson
I’m reminded of NTW’s post:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/03/silicon-valley-accelerationists-marc-andreessen-peter-thiel-alex-karp-mark-zuckerberg.html/
Think about the run up to the current mess.
There were plenty of humans that pointed out all the faults. However, the rush to the algorithms is about not empowering many of those people. Those are often the same people that have ideas about curbing billionaire-bro power.
Please give some attention to what is happening in Cuba as a result of Trump’s blockage. The population is suffering
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/25/havana-warfare-donald-trump-oil-blockade
Ryan Grim of Drop Site News and Breaking Points has just been to Cuba. Here’s one of his reports on that trip. I have to admit to limiting how much attention I pay to this because it is so heartbreaking and infuriating.
The two sailing ships carrying aid have been located 80 nautical miles off of Havana. Two Cuba-bound aid ships found days after disappearing, BBC.
Frustratingly short on detail. A spokesman for the Nuestra (Our) America Convoy said earlier that the crew were safe. Neither he nor the Mexican Navy gave any explanation about why the Friendship and Tiger Moth had disappeared.
Read to the end for some classic Little Marco speak.
Remarkable to see this in the mainstream media:
I guess now that as a civilization-ending war is taking the media’s focus off of ridiculously pumping AI 24/7, the air is starting to seep out of the bubble. Or maybe business people can only hold one thought in their heads at any given time.
Good times with AI:
Grandmother was arrested for a bank heist she never committed in a state she’s never been to, all because of an AI mistake
It sounds like the kind of story people would reject as too far-fetched if it showed up in a bad crime drama. A grandmother in Tennessee, who according to her lawyers had never been to North Dakota and had never even been on an airplane, was arrested at home, jailed, extradited to Fargo, and left to sit behind bars for months because police followed an AI lead that pointed to the wrong person.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/grandmother-was-arrested-for-a-bank-heist-she-never-committed-in-a-state-shes-never-been-to-all-because-of-an-ai-mistake/ar-AA1ZzFwc
thanks!
The second part is even worse before it got better:
Fargo Released Her Into Winter With Almost Nothing
After the charges were dropped, Greenwood said Angela was essentially turned loose in Fargo in the middle of winter. She was from Tennessee. She had no family there, no money, no local support, and according to Greenwood, the authorities had not even let her bring her false teeth with her when she was arrested.
The Cass County Jail, he said, offered what it called a winter package, maybe a coat and a few basics, because North Dakota in December is brutal.
But the actual help did not come from the government that had dragged her there. It came from the local defense bar and the community. Greenwood said local defense lawyers pooled money for a hotel and food. He also described how a man named Adam Martin, who runs a foundation called F5, personally drove Angela halfway to Chicago so she could meet her family and get back to Tennessee.
Bryan was clearly stunned by that part of the story, and it is easy to see why.
The government made the mistake, but private people had to clean it up. That contrast says a lot.
So Starmer thinks he’s Francis Drake or Queen Elizabeth I.
When did European leadership become such clowns? Tony Blair?
plunging alcohol consumption points to long covid IMO
Matches my experience, except I doubt I would earn a long covid diagnosis. I have switched to 0.4% beer and rarely drink more than a glass of wine since a near-asymptomatic bout of covid. Any more just isn’t enjoyable. I suspect I’m also stupider than I used to be but I can’t figure out how to prove it.
” I suspect I’m also stupider than I used to be but I can’t figure out how to prove it.”
I’m in the same leaky boat but cannot make bail either, to max metaphors.
Stay safe.
Re; A Christian Case for Gossip
It all comes down to intent, doesn’t it? I believe that we all inherently have a duty to warn, but malicuous gossip is entirelly something else.
“Trump extends certain US sanctions against Russia for one year ”
Trump still looking to have any leverage that he can over Russia but Russia no longer cares. After the assassination attempt on Putin a coupla months ago the realization is that you cannot negotiate with Trump. He will always renege and betray.
The end is nigh – The White House App – https://x.com/clashreport/status/2037561652338368630/photo/1
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/foreign-affairs/us-circumvents-swiss-payment-freeze-for-patriot-air-defence-system/91163617
Serves them right.