Surgeon’s op on patient 1,500 miles away a UK first BBC
Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs Cornell Chronicle
Climate/Environment
Global Warming Has Accelerated Significantly Geophysical Research Letters
How robust is our accelerometer? Real Climate
Snow Cover Is Shrinking Across The Northern Hemisphere Far Faster Than It’s Growing StudyFinds
When will clean energy spending exceed military spending? The Climate Brink
Is a deep freeze coming? Prospect Magazine. ““If pandemic threat assessment and preparedness was as fragmented… we would be scandalised,” says Laurie Laybourn, director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative…”
Pandemics
Covid bereaved families ‘let down and abandoned’ on day of reflection Press Association
Many with long COVID remain on the job despite reduced ability to work CIDRAP
USDA Triggers ‘Secure Our Herds’ Alert As Mandatory 2026 H5N1 Dairy Testing Threatens Midwest Milk Margins Agroinformacion News
Water
After a Decade of Missteps, a Texas City Careens Toward a Water-Shortage Catastrophe Inside Climate News
Japan
Japanese builders are rapidly acquiring U.S. homebuilders—now Daiwa House is buying United Homes ResiClub
China?
Beijing Ready for Trump Visit, Eyes “Healthy” U.S.–China Relations in 2026 George Chen
Active Neutrality in the Middle East – Chinese Commentary on the US-Iran war Sinification
Southeast Asia
South-east Asia faces sweltering heat as war limits energy supply Straits Times
Nepal
Rapper-turned-politician Balen Shah’s RSP heads for poll landslide in Nepal Al Jazeera
Afghanistan-Pakistan
Two fronts: Taliban courts India while strategically blasting Pakistan Asia Times
India
India’s structural exposure to oil price shock is very high, warns Moody’s Ratings The Hindu
Hindutva Kneels to Hug Yankee Imperialism Countercurrents
Russia Serves a Cold Dish to the GCC and India Larry Johnson
Syraqistan
This is Teheran this morning – Yes, this morning.
Thick black clouds are covering the city – oil and ashes are raining down on the streets.
War is hell.
A PH test of the water in Teheran also shows that the water has become acidic- resulting from the oil and ashes leaking… pic.twitter.com/M2LRoDXp6o
— ScharoMaroof (@ScharoMaroof) March 8, 2026
Iran strike hits Bahrain’s biggest oil refinery Bapco, thick smoke seen over site Firstpost
Retaliatory strike hits Bahrain desalination plant after US attack on Iran’s Qeshm facility The Cradle
Dubai has ten days of fresh food left Intellinews
US orders war’s first embassy staff evacuation in Saudi Arabia Al Mayadeen
***
Trump says decision to end Iran war will be made mutually with Israel Anadolu Agency
‘Moment of truth is approaching for Iranian people, war will continue’: Netanyahu WION
US, Israel discussed special forces mission to secure Iran’s enriched uranium New Arab
Seventh U.S. service member killed in Iran war The Independent
Troops Are Cheaper Than Missiles Un-Diplomatic
***
Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei elected new Leader of the Islamic Revolution Press TV
The academic racists behind Iranian monarchism Anti-Empire Project
***
More than 500,000 displaced in Lebanon as Israel escalates attacks Al Jazeera
Africa
More pragmatic than socialist Review of African Political Economy. Burkina Faso and comparison of Ibrahim Traoré to Thomas Sankara.
European Disunion
Iran war is the latest blow for Europe’s battered industrial backbone Bloomberg
Trillion Dollar Bills: The Costs of Transatlantic Dependence for Europe Transition Security Project
Europe looks on in disbelief as US appropriates its weapons for Iran war Intellinews
Ursula von der Leyen faces blowback over diplomatic ‘overreach’ Politico
Slovakia Ready To “Take Over Baton” from Hungary of Blocking €90 Billion Loan to Ukraine European Conservative
Ukraine vs Europe? Events in Ukraine
New Not-So-Cold War
Putin’s Dilemma: Compromise, Escalate, or Prevaricate? Gordon Hahn
Europe’s longest dog-sled race hit by Russian GPS jamming Barents Observer
South of the Border
US military kills six in strike on alleged drug boat in Pacific AP
L’affaire Epstein
Fuzzy memories and hard facts: An SC accuser’s claims against Epstein, Trump examined The Post and Courier
DOJ docs, FBI interview, raise new questions about Epstein’s “suicide” The Epstein Files by Julie K. Brown
Trump 2.0
White House Accused of Blocking FBI Terror Warnings Linked to Iran’s War Threats to the Homeland International Business Times
Kristi Noem all but killed FEMA. Will her departure save it? Grist
Police State Watch
Americans are Now a Target In Trump’s Immigration Crackdown WSJ
A “Humanitarian Response” Firm With No Federal Contract History Is Staffing Planned Immigration Detention Center in Maryland Project Salt Box
ICE’s New Maryland Detention Center Would Need 209,000 Gallons of Water a Day. Nobody Knows Where It Will Come From Project Salt Box
AI
Coming Soon, From the People Behind ICE Detention Camps: Data Center Company Towns Gizmodo
Sam Altman’s greed and dishonesty are finally catching up to him Gary Marcus
Grand Theft Reality Helen of desTroy
The Accelerationists
Elon Musk moves for mistrial in Twitter fraud case because everyone hates him Electrek
Imperial Collapse Watch
The anti-American axis myth Asia Times
How China’s Rare Earth Ban Backfired into a U.S. Tech Breakthrough OilPrice. Sounds too good to be true. Hopefully some rare earth experts can comment.
U.S. Defense Logistics Agency Awards Historic Contract to REalloys’ Terves LLC to Scale Domestic Rare Earth Metal Production Globe Newswire (press release)
Groves of Academe
When Correlation Repeats Across 50 States: The NAEP Evidence Behind My Senate Testimony The Digital Delusion
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
The banality of surveillance Benn Stancil
Mr. Market Panics
G7 to discuss release of emergency oil reserves as price tops $100 The Guardian
Monopoly Round-Up: Will the Iran Price Shock Break the World? Matt Stoller
🚨 THIS IS THE DAY THAT WILL BE IN HISTORY BOOKS. AND YOU’RE LIVING THROUGH IT RIGHT NOW.
Read these numbers. Then read them again.
💀 Oil prices up 25% — on a SUNDAY
💀 U.S. stock market futures erasing $2+ TRILLION — before the market even OPENS
💀 20 million barrels per day…— 🇨🇳 陈杰森 Jason Chen (@CNBlockIntel) March 9, 2026
The Bezzle
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
70 comments
Comments are closed.
‘ScharoMaroof
@ScharoMaroof
This is Teheran this morning – Yes, this morning.
Thick black clouds are covering the city – oil and ashes are raining down on the streets. War is hell.’
Lindsey Graham was very upset about this. He has been running around saying that when the US conquers Iran, then the US will control one third of the world’s oil. But Israel blowing up Iran’s oil infrastructure is going to delay his dream and cost many billions of dollars to repair and wants them to knock it off.
Lindsey is just learning how untrustworthy the Israelis really are. After all, he’s just a Goy to them; use him up and then “dispose of properly.”
This is a good piece on US strategic defeat that will be familiar to NC readers but there is a mind-blowing perspective in the comments.
https://policytensor.substack.com/p/why-the-us-is-facing-strategic-defeat/
“You couldn’t be more wrong. Keeping the straights of Hormuz closed with plausible deniability is the goal of this operation to inflict maximum pain on Europe and the gulf states and redirect capital to the western hemisphere. Total American victory regardless of outcome”
https://open.substack.com/pub/policytensor/p/why-the-us-is-facing-strategic-defeat?utm_source=direct&utm_campaign=comment-list-share-cta&utm_medium=web&comments=true&commentId=224505404
What do you think, commentariat? Could we be reading this wrong? Is the USA indifferent to its losses in the middle east because the fundamental pivot is to the Western Hemisphere.
The Ukraine was a hedged bet: heads we win Russia, tails we loot Europe and abandon NATO. Is the war on Iran the same? Heads we win all the oil, tails none shall have it?
Does this make Israel the biggest freier since NATO? It is dangerous to be an enemy of the USA but fatal to be its friend….
I am having to reconsider my worldview this morning!
No, this is someone desperately crafting an argument to depict the US/Israel and not Iran as in charge of when the war end.
The real-world damage is already starting to show up beyond energy prices (I have seen but not featured US grain nerdery YouTubes which have mentioned US farmer freakout about the risk to fertilizer prices; see also the tidbit in the post re aluminum prices). And US consumers will go deeper into Trump opposition as gas prices rise at the pump
See this post again for its summary of and links to an in-depth analysis of considerable real economy effects, some of which are not closely related to energy costs but other uses of petroleum inputs: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/03/iran-war-systemic-risk-of-a-strait-of-hormuz-closure-us-plan-to-enlist-kurds-hezbollah-unexpectedly-pounds-israel.html
spring planting for corn, beans just around the corner in the US. Cost of production for every major and minor crop is legging higher, unforeseen in any farmer or bankers budget. Also true worldwide no matter the crop stage, Grain markets were grudgingly acknowledging the reality that prices were not covering costs, now a forced reset will necessarily bring higher price, In commodities precious metals rise first, then energies, then grains, then softs. War risk premia now has to widen. This cat ain’t gong back into the bag. Short covering rallies always satisfying, and they always beg the question,now what?
Here in Oz we have about 30 days of petrol (gas) and diesel left in reserves which is not a lot. We are hearing of more and more petrol stations shutting down as their tanks are now empty because people are filling their cars up full & Bunnings are reporting that fuel cans are flying off their shelves. I would imagine that the situation is similar in other countries but when you stop to think about it, this is only the second week of the war. Mr. Market may be a bit slow on the uptake but a lot of people are reacting rapidly including stocking up their homes with groceries like happened in 2020. All this comes down the the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and I imagine that the Iranians will only open it up when they get full sanction relief from the west. And if the west plays funny buggers like they did before, then they can shut that Strait right down again.
it’s the insurance companies.
I’ve seen this argument elsewhere, the theory on this idea is based on pushing demand towards Venezuela’s production, which Trump “controls”. Above my pay grade if that is even partially practicable, but I can see the talentless lot running this show believing.
I saw a similar argument on MofA. To believe it, you have to be willing to grant the Trump admin ’10th level chess’ style strategizing. If it were true, the US/Israel would certainly be guilty of antagonizing China (40-50% of their oil passes through the strait), incentivizing them to join the conflict on the Iranian side.
The argument is that the aim of the wars (against Iran and against Venezuela) is more to deny China the hydrocarbons it needs than to subdue Iran.
The argument would hold if:
1) Either the USA is sufficiently autarkic not to depend itself, directly or indirectly, from all the resources that are blocked in the Persian Gulf. Several examples have been cited — from fertilizers no longer being exported by Gulf states to Taiwan having to stop producing chips because of a lack of energy — to show that this is not true.
2) Or the USA can rely upon (by compulsory trade or looting) upon agreeable third parties to supply whatever is at risk of shortage: Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Unfortunately, those regions are vitally dependent on Gulf export themselves — e.g. Europe for energy, Latin America for fertilizers, Africa for sulphuric acid used in mines. Thus, they cannot serve as fallback.
3) Or the USA has stockpiled the necessary supplies in such amounts as to survive unscathed the shortages caused by the war, at least longer than the adversary (China) it wants to subdue would be capable of. The example of the SPR, which had been left unreplenished for years till the war began, or the fact that the USA has been scrambling to attempt constituting a strategic reserve for rare earths, shows there was no such stockpile allowing it to ride the crisis and be the last country standing when it is over.
The consequences of the war will fall harshly on the USA — directly or indirectly.
This other substack will put you on a opposite direction track and also scare the shit out of you as well. It is a bit technical and has nothing to do with politics but industrial production and interlinking chains: https://theuaob.substack.com/p/the-naphtha-heart-attack-why-120
“Ursula von der Leyen faces blowback over diplomatic ‘overreach’”
I read this with disbelief. It could have been published at any time in the past 5 years wrt a dozen different interventions by VdL. Have these people been in a coma? It’s pretty rich that they quote Nathalie Loiseau a fail up from Macron’s pseudo party. Perhaps positioning her for bigger things. Stupidity reigns.
You shouldn’t. vdL is not only in “overreach” mode but she is also being more stupid than ever. Her last speech was a big mistake. Editorials are being written against her as never were.
“Beijing Ready for Trump Visit, Eyes “Healthy” U.S.–China Relations in 2026”
I’m not so optimistic as this George Chen. In three weeks Trump goes to China and I guarantee that it will be a s*** show. He will make demands on Xi like how they have to stop buying oil from Russia and buy much more expensive US oil, that they must pull all support from Iran & stop helping them and that they have to resume selling rare earths to the US again as in right now. And when the Chinese politely say that none of this is going to happen, he will hold a press conference and say that China agreed to all of his demands. Better lay in some popcorn for this visit. Trump will only accept that China become a supplicant nation to the US and that is the only thing that he will accept.
My guess is that Xi issues an ultimatum on Taiwan re-unification. BTW, even if America miraculously can manufacture rare earth magnets on the fly, China expanded the materials subject to export restrictions, all of which are vital to MIC operations, and for which China is the dominant supplier.
My guess is that China expects Trump to come in a position of weakness, with no end in sight for his intervention in Iran and the US economy in the doldrums. In other words, they expect Trump to come as a beggar.
I’m hoping the Chinese put him in a room with lots of gold and fabulous drapes, feed him burgers and ketchup steaks, flatter him endlessly, possibly hint about some of the unkind things Bibi has been saying about him – essentially kidnapping him and leading him to post healthy, stable, and sustainable policy on Truth Social.
I’m sure Melinia, and possibly even Ivanka, would support this so their calls could get though. The could pay Melinia cash. Ivanka already has business in China.
Odd that my only hope is China, but here I am.
Russia Serves a Cold Dish to the GCC and India – Larry Johnson
“Modi’s obsequious behavior in Israel was a direct insult to the other members of BRICS… Advocating warm relations with a country guilty of genocide has not been well-received by other BRICS members.”
Yep…Putin curses NuttyYahoo every time he calls and all the other BRICS cut their trade and diplomatic with Israel.
… oh wait…
I don’t blame India. They will be down-wind of any nuclear fallout. I would be talking to Israel too, if I were in their shoes.
Ultimately we’ll all be downwind, some just getting a bigger dose than others. Radiation from nuclear tests in the 40s, 50s and 60s coats the Earth.
> Surgeon’s op on patient 1,500 miles away a UK first BBC
>> The operation was performed from The London Clinic using a robot equipped with a 3D HD camera and four arms, all controlled through a console with a delay of only 0.06 seconds.
My own surgery last Thursday was done with a da Vinci surgical system. The first thing I saw in the operating room was this thing in the corner like a giant robot crab (it’s big). Whole place looked like a starship bridge, the nurse asked how I was feeling and I said ‘excited’.
Four laproscopic holes, with a final four-inch incision to remove the mass (it was big). Doing tai-chi backwards down the hall for the physical therapist the next day. That’s all I’ll say about meself.
There is still progress in this world.
[methodisthospitals.org/robotic-assisted-surgery/meet-the-da-vinci-xi-surgical-system/]
Good morning. It may seem silly, but it’s made my day considerably brighter to see your handle. I hope you achieved warp speed.
anecdata – I watched the World Baseball Classic video of the Tokyo game of South Korea v Japan. In the crowd shots, I estimate 7% mask wearing. Majority Japan fans of course, but sizeable amount of Korean fans (judging by fans’ team t-shirt/cap/etc).
Afaict after China & New Zealand abandoned Covid Zero, even in East Asian nations small minorities on an individual level practice Covid NPI mitigations like indoor public building mask usage. To those in or nearby East Asia, I am understanding the situation correctly?
East Asians often wear these masks if fearing they are contagious with a common cold or flu. It’s a courtesy due to living in dense urban areas. It’s not necessarily about COVID (although a friend of mine has worn one every day since– she’s a neuroscientist so maybe she knows something the rest of us don’t)
Moreover, it’s yellow dust season here in East Asia. Yellow dust coincides with the end of winter. Poor households in Korea and China use charcoal briquettes to heat their homes, causing some soot to enter the atmosphere. Together, they make March a bad time to go outside (even as the weather is improving).
We had a bad yellow dust day last week and I expect more to come. The dust can get so thick that you can look at the sun without squinting. Even windy little Jeju is not safe from yellow dust.
Where I am, we often have elevated PM 2.5 levels, more so in Bangkok than where I am. A big reason is crop stubble burning. So mask wearing is not seen as abnormal among locals.
Vietnam tourist area anecdata:
Locals: wear masks very often if they have to be outside near roads due to crappy air/pollution. A reasonable number of staff wear them in cafes/shops (whether for their health or customers’ peace of mind I’m unsure).
East Asian tourists: wear masks reasonably often, especially (I think) Koreans. Still very much a minority of tourists from those countries.
Westerners: almost never wear masks except for the occasional older/unhealthy person.
Country Joe McDonald, R.I.P.
No one had a bigger musical impact on building resistance to the Vietnam War than Country Joe and the Fish’s “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die-Rag.”
Not quite as antiwar but once again culturally timely, give me an F…
I saw Country Joe live half a dozen times and his “Fixin’ to die rag” was my favorite of the anti war songs.
I have not forgotten “The first one on my block to come home in a box” and I am still angry about it.
When I was in the Army in ’68 a friend was in charge of playing music on the post pa system at lunch time. He played Country Joe’s Fixing to die Rage. I told him, “Kenny you’re going to get court-marshaled”. The next day at lunch time our First Sargent told Kenny, “play that song again”. Especially poignant were the lyrics, “Be the first one on your block to have your boy come home in a box”. We found out later the First Sargent’s son had been killed in Vietnam a year earlier. R.I.P. Country Joe
One of the Anti War marches I participated in was 500,000 strong.
Half a Million singing the “Fixin to die rag” as we marched.
Nothing changed.
I don’t know, Tom. One thing that changed is the draft came to an end. Thanks to that, Trump and Hegseth can talk about “boots on the ground,” but they don’t have a military anywhere close to big enough to make it happen. If they do it anyway, it will be a slaughter for the poor unfortunates who fill those boots.
Here’s the famous Woodstock performance. I love how it opens with a shot of Yasgur’s Holsteins chewing the cud.
He was a USN Vet and was stationed in Japan in the early 1960s, so singing it and supporting VNVAW w an authentic voice.
Before the VNW was ended, the Rag would often resound out of Barracks windows across our Kaserne’s Parade Ground (on the weekends).
We were Cold Warriors in a Pershing Missile Battalion so “all gonna die” really resonated with my 19 year old self.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Joe_McDonald
Dog-sled race and GPS-navigation. So none of the sled-racers know how to navigate using nature and a compass, you know, like to they could, say only 40 years ago? Crappification of skills and the race itself.
Country Joe was one brave man.
“Russia Serves a Cold Dish to the GCC and India”
This is the Russians being the cold, hard realists which they have a reputation for. They called out those Gulf States for blaming Iran exclusively and saying nothing about the US and Israel. Well Lavrov was not having a bar of it and told them that they can’t get away with it and any cessation of hostilities would have to include the US and Israel. And until they accepted that fact, then they are on their own and that Russia will step back and let them be bombed until they accepted this fact.
Looks like too that the Russians have Modi over an oil barrel. India was getting their oil from Russia at a discounted rate but now that they are playing footsie with Israel and the US, they can pay market prices now plus an extra premium. Even if the issue of oil prices settles down in the next coupla months, I bet that they will have to keep on paying those higher costs for Russian oil. Modi is going to have trouble with his budget this year.
(I thought I saw this here but I cannot find it so apologies if it is a repost)
“USA closes Adaba consulate in Turkey, advises all US residents in SE Turkey to depart.”
https://nitter.poast.org/MyLordBebo/status/2030972116527350131#m
Why is this important? I had a vague feeling I knew where Adana was and yes, it’s a 25 minute drive from the Incirlik airbase. That’s the NATO base where the US keeps a few dozen nuclear warheads.
Why does the US fear imminent attack on its nuclear base…?
Wrt the alleged rare earth breakthrough, here’s something I’d been wondering a while.
Like rare esrths, except more so, titanium is one of more common elements in Earth’s crust, except that processing it into usable form was so costly. The only sources of titanium in large scake were first Russia, then China (which remains the dominant supplier today).
Now, aboit a decade ago, there were talks about some brilliant innovation that would allow titanium to be extracted from hitherto unavailable sources that would somehow free the West from the Chinese and ghe Russians. I have not heard anything about this of late. What’s the current state of titanium supply? Is there anything to be learned from this wrt rare earths?
Ti is not that rare. As with most things, it is a question of money. If you can find gold nuggets on the ground that is much better than having to mine ore with a few ppm of gold and process that to produce the pure metal. Almost any mineral containing Ti can be processed to produce the pure metal. A common ore for Ti is ilmenite; iron – titanium – oxide. The more complicated the starting ore is the more refining steps you need which raises the price. With rare earth elements, these usually are found together with other things such as uranium or thorium traces which makes it difficult to dispose of the remaining material after you extract the desired elements. More costs.
Re: REAlloy (f/k/a Blackboxstocks) Rare Earths
I can’t comment on the technology but a reverse merger with a small time publicly traded trading platform to do AI rare earth refining without the perfidious Chinese seems just a tad suspect.
I’d ignore the AI mention. The processing may or may not include an AI component (who knows?, or cares?); but any and all tech related press releases these days must say AI to get any attention. : (
OilPrice has been touting that piece for a week– that’s what caught my attention and raised my suspicions
I took a brief stroll through their website. They seem to be making magnet related materials for aerospace industry. No mention of GaN for high power RF amplifiers (radar, communications).
A quick read about GaN from the MIC:
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/trecms/pdf/AD1191843.pdf
How long before we start stripping
washing machines5G radios for their amplifiers? /sMy impression is that they automated the extraction and differentiation process, which using modern SCADA tech makes a whole lot of sense and should improve the efficiency of the various chemical processes.
Other than that, it’s the same set of processes with the same environmental hazards and concentrate limitations (the ore must be bastnatite (carbonate) or monazite (phosphate), but not allanite (silicate), with limitations on U and Th content). I don’t see how AI could impact the process as its complicated but not complex- i.e. many specific steps but each step is fairly simple. The automation is the key, not data.
The good news is that the plant was something of a pilot project, i.e. limited in size, yet it still produced significant amounts of metal. This means that the contamination footprint, while still nasty, is smaller compared to the typical processes.
Re: How China’s Rare Earth Ban Backfired into a U.S. Tech Breakthrough
A quick look at REalloy’s website shows why Trump is obsessed with taking over Canada and Greenland. The article makes it sound like this is a breakthrough for US rare earth security, but it sounds like it’s still heavily dependent of foreign sources (albeit not China):
https://realloys.com/about/
I had hoped that Trump would have a meltdown during SOTU that was obvious enough to slow down or stop the Warmongers from lighting the World on fire.
It probably would not have changed anything if Vance had taken over a few weeks ago, but I did have some hope.
As it is half the US population is going to face some stark choices, we are on the edge financially and when food and gas become unaffordable for more than 100 Million Americans, something will give.
It’s going to get ugly, and soon, because there’s no way to turn the clock back and America’s “Leadership” is too corrupt, too incompetent and too brutal to do anything except double down.
It’s gonna be lit, with a flamethrower.
Re the Post and Courier story–one of the authors wrote the long ago book on Strom Thurmond that I may have mentioned here. Sounds like Epstein was careful to confine his predations to living on the edge of poverty white girls so Dershowitz (and later Michael Tracey) could try to discredit them.
The allegations are at least plausible but it could be only Netanyahu has the tapes resulting from further developments in kompromat tech.
The Epstein saga has been pushed into the background in recent days as our war with Iran threatens WWIII (or more accurately, creates yet another possible flashpoint among several). But I have been uncomfortable that nearly the entire remaining media attention on Epstein has been directed to this particular case. I understand why the Dems and the liberal media want to push it: it’s Trump! And it is perfectly conceivable to me that this could have actually happened. But as you imply, there are so many unfortunate elements in this poor girl’s family history that it provides ideal ammunition for the Dershowitz-Tracey “debunking” strategy: selecting the weakest links for targeted smear campaigns. The media plays right into this.
Those sincerely interested in unraveling the complex Epstein story should avoid being “Dan Rathered.” Of course that would not include most of the mainstream media.
IF, and that’s a big IF, these files would finally get Trump, which so many are foaming at the mouth to do, it will then all go away, and they will all go back to brunch. Too many are not ready to admit “their” side has guilty people too.
Hillary and Bill told us they knew nothing and saw nothing. That’s good enough for many, now get Trump. That’s all they care about.
That is another tragedy in all this.
All the guilty should pay. The first, the last, and everyone in between. Nothing less should be acceptable.
It’s a confluence of a lot of different things. Western elites desperately wanted something to take the heat off the Epstein files. The USA/Israel has wanted to change the Iran situation for decades; Bibi has made it a pet project in particular. This also smashes ME oil output, increasing the value of US oil producers and its recent Venezuela grab, giving the USA more geopolitical power and leverage. Then there’s the Mackinder “Heartland” theory via Ukraine and Iran- the USA seeks to destabilize this vital part of Eurasia to ensure no one can control it until it can. These conflicts and their destabilizing effects also disrupt China’s plans, including its BRI, as the USA seeks to level the playing field by bringing China down. Having Eurasia on shaky grounds also increases the desirability of US markets and dollar, the least dirty shirt theory of investing playing out.
But yes, back to the oil- imagine being an investor in Texas shale production or an oil major considering Venezuela. These developments probably have you giddy with prospects, as well as those who connect USA geopolitical dominance with its oil dominance. This also feeds into the China angle, as China is developing alternative energy not just for the environment but to also reduce the USA’s leverage via the oil power play.
So surely it’s the USA behind some of the destruction of ME energy infrastructure and is hiding such operations within the conflict, doing things like making it look like Israel or Iran is behind it.
Finally, thank you for continuing to cover the Epstein situation Are they really starting a war and crashing things just to avoid and reduce accountability? It sure seems so.
the “synergizing paradigms’ article reminds me of a verse from “Shinola” by the band Utopia (Powell/Rundgren/Sulton/Wilcox)
obvious, but well stated
Tao te Ching #56 (Le Guin rendition)
You can always count on LaoTzu to be concise.
American oligarchy.
Billionaires Are Swaying Elections in All Corners of America (NY Times)
Not a serious country.
Citizens United was the end of whatever pathetic democracy America had
>ICE’s New Maryland Detention Center Would Need 209,000 Gallons of Water a Day. Nobody Knows Where It Will Come From
Concentration camps do not require a water supply. Instead, poison gas comes out of the showers.
Microslop tries again
Microsoft adds higher-priced Office tier with Copilot as it tries to juice sales with AI (CNBC)
The news on Twitter that Microsoft is banning microslop from its Discord server is pretty funny.
All I know is they’ve forced Copilot, which no one wants, onto everyone. What a joke. That’s “adoption” for you.
That laptop I picked up around Xmas runs great with CachyOS linux. I installed that and wiped Windows 11 all at the same time. I also installed a Windows 10 VM for running the occasional Windows program. I recently used the VM for updating the maps on a Garmin GPS.
I find “The academic racists behind Iranian monarchism” article unconvincing. I think this is a more general phenomenon, illuminated perhaps by Stuart Parker’s idea that the West is developing a caste system. From the article:
The article details a history of ideas of 19th century racism – then leaps over everything since the mid 20th century:
“Only one answer.” Racism is the universal explanation.
Why did Trump win in 2016? Racism.
Why did the United States nuke Japan? Racism.
Why American slavery? Racism.
This is part of what Neema Parvini calls the Boomer Truth Regime:
Racism is today seen as the distillation of this gnostic insight. When someone does something bad, the reason is racism. Race may be socially constructed but racism is eternal.
It’s possible that 19th century racism motivates the dancing diaspora, but the article provides no evidence that race is even in their minds. It just outlines history, waves its hands and accuses, like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Were I to seek the simplest possible explanation, it would be that plant, animal or human, we compete most with those with whom we are the most similar. In practice we care little for those with whom we are unrelated. Bomb them, sure, but celebrate it? Hardly. The fiercest fights are over the smallest differences.
But I’m not sure I find the simple explanation satisfying for what seems to me to be a much larger phenomenon. It’s not just diasporas who wish to “punish” those from whom they came. Why do Western elites so despise their populations? Sometimes this is referred to as oikophobia (the opposite of xenophobia), but I don’t think that really captures the extreme contempt of the PMC for the deplorables of the working class, or the contempt of the Epstein class for the working class, the PMC and everyone else.
Stuart Parker proposes the rise of caste in the West:
What Parker does not mention is the distinguishing moral flaw of the unclean caste. Which is, of course, racism. In which case racism is not the reason for the dancing diaspora: racism is the excuse for dancers and accusers alike. Behind it hide caste and class.
I read the Parvini article you cited and took a look into the Charlemagne Institute which publishes the magazine in which Parvini’s article appears. Chronicles was apparently too much even for reactionary Richard John Neuhaus with whom I’m quite familiar.
Parvini goes through a long discussion of myth, a favorite topic of mine, and he touches on the views of Bernays, Ellul, Debord, Althusser, and Foucault. Who can argue against a thesis that elites use control of culture to manipulate everyone else and neuter any possible opposition that might arise? The problem is that there are some real clinkers in Parvini’s piece that betray his reactionary purpose:
American workers did a lot more than “dream.” They organized, fought the battles of Blair Mountain and Flint, and emerged with a great deal of power in the industrialized economy of the 1950s, despite the reactionary Taft-Hartley Act. Sadly, that success did not lead most of the labor movement (the UAW was an exception, among others) to fight for broader reforms in society, and a big chunk of labor was a reactionary force when it came to foreign policy. Over the long run, this myopic view that cared about little other than another bump in salary and another 3-day weekend to see the USA in their Chevrolets, made labor an irrelevancy.
Fully instituted by 1965? Yeah, right. Well, maybe things had already gone far enough as far as Mr. Parvini is concerned.
Parvini then moves on to do what every reactionary since Spiro Agnew has done: blame the hippies, in this case John Lennon. The initial attack on this white working class lad from Liverpool, presumably a member of the most oppressed class, focuses on “Imagine,” but the lyric is never directly quoted. Perhaps Parvini considered such ideas too pornographic to appear in print:
Imagine no possessions.
I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.
You may say I’m a dreamer,
But I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us,
And the world will live as one.
“Imagine” John Lennon
Instead, Parvini quotes at length from Lennon’s “God,” a song announcing the end of the Beatlesand the shedding of his old self, for the proposition that Lennon, the “Working Class Hero,” was a radical individualist, a proposition obviously at odds with the lyrics of “Imagine” that Parvini avoided The institutions attacked by Lennon in “Imagine” were those he perceived to be promoting tribalism and preventing human solidarity.
It clarifies matters to focus on supremacism of various flavors. Human supremacy makes it easy for us to rape and pillage the Earth, even to the point of threatening our own well-being. Western/Christian supremacy made it easy to annihilate the aboriginal peoples who lived in Africa and the Americas. The Jewish supremacy that reeks in the Epstein files makes their abuse of goy girls comprehensible as it does the genocide in Gaza. The elites hide behind the myth of meritocracy as they engage in social murder of their own populations and kinetic slaughter of those outside their boundaries.
Ezra used supremacist myths to create a book with the goal of reestablishing ethnic solidarity after returning from exile to rebuild the destroyed capital of Jerusalem and its temple. We continue to reap the whirlwind from that choice today. Defenders of slavery in America used the same text and its supremacist elements to justify their claims that their God was hunky dory with owning other humans. Murray and Herrnstein used IQ tests and social “science” to justify treating black Americans as an underclass. And yes, DailyKos used the purported racism of rural Trump voters to indulge in relishing their suffering.
It seems to me that mistreatment of other living beings and a supremacist worldview are a chicken and egg problem. Without an incentive to exploit, a supremacist worldview might never arise as a rationalization. Without the supremacist worldview, we would think it impossible for those outside the Dark Triad crowd to engage in such atrocities over the long term without being driven mad.
“Working Class Hero” John Lennon
I don’t think Parvini has a clue about who John Lennon was.
Neema Parvini (aka Academic Agent) used to be on dissident right but now claims to be on left. Doubtful. Stalin might call him a deviationist. He is left-wing to extent he wants to dismantle liberalism. He is right-wing to extent he wants to replace it with fascism eg strength, efficiency, hierarchy. Many such cases.
Not that I am idealizing that outcome, but this is how, as Marcuse predicted, we got identity politics. It become the ideology of the PMC, who as bureaucratic enforcers of the regime stripped away what labour had won.
I first saw this commercial recently, a “diverse” take on Triumph of the Will only recently. This is what Imagine has always meant to me. You say labour sold out for a Chevy and a road trip, but… a Coke!?
As one who grew up in the shadow of the boomers, I didn’t encounter hippies through right-wing propaganda: no, they were among my teachers. Anticipating Fukuyama they announced the cultural end of history. They tried to make us one with them. They tried to turn us into avatars of their politics, despised us for our disinterest. A strict teacher of an older generation demanded only compliance: do as I say. Boomers wanted something more, something deeper: think as we think, feel as we feel. They ignored boundaries, pried into private lives, pretended to be friends.
I think there was something particular about the baby boom generation. It seems that at one point many of them really did feel that they were “one.” But “the world will live as one” is no Utopia. It is totalitarian. There is no such thing as unforced consensus. Behind every consensus stands coercion.
Hannah Arendt, trying to understand what went wrong in the 1930s, asserts that the foundation of our humanity is what she calls “natality”: each of us brings something new into the world. We are all fundamentally, irreducibly, mysteriously different. We do not even understand who we are: this is something we can only discover through our actions in the world. The quest for unity denies this difference (not superficial “diversity”) and with it our humanity.
Yes. I know. Present evils recall Walter Benjamin’s Angel of History:
I recall you have cited the Tao. In my limited understanding Tao does not concern itself with good or evil. You speak of human supremacy. I am coming to the conclusion that the greatest evils arise not from greed or cruelty per se, but from the belief that one is God, self creating, self justifying. Often in the name of progress, these days often in the guise of transhumanism.
When people elevate truth I think they are mistaken. Our grasp on truth is ever imperfect. Truth was the justification for many a crime. We should aspire not to truth but to honesty. Just as honesty is the best we can do, progress is like truth: too close to the divine, too much to hope for, so often cruel. I doubt there is any politics, any social order, than can transcend our imperfect humanity – which despite and because of all its flaws is a mysterious wonder.
Maybe you are only referring to our treatment of nature, but to say that labour was bought off implies that material well being is not enough. There is something more, something metaphysical. For the left, this might be equality. I dislike authority. Inequality rubs me the wrong way. I see the towers of capitalist wealth and heat rises in my brain. Inequality becomes an out-of-control feedback loop fuelling corruption, cruelty and destruction. Yet it is my observation that what most people really want is a meaningful place in society. We crave structure over equality. Given a choice between equality and a meaningful but lowly place, I suspect the vast majority of us would be happier with the latter. Not all, but most. As it is, our world today offers neither. I don’t have an answer: but living as one is not it.
I have far fewer disagreements with you than I do with Parvini, and I’m a little mystified about why you would cite him. Based on that article alone, it seems to me that what bothered Parvini was Lennon’s attack on tribalizing institutions, like private property, and his casting off of societal norms and fads in a search for more meaningful, personal values. According to “God,” those values began with his love for Yoko to which I can only respond, “To each his own.”
Obviously, I can’t speak to your experience, but I do recognize myself in your description of your Boomer teachers, and can try to offer something in the way of an apologia. From my perspective on lived history, something wonderful was lost when Kent State and McGovern’s defeat ended the hope of throwing a switch and diverting the train from traveling the path to destruction. At first, I thought the switch was still in our grasp, and if we could just mobilize new people to “join us,” as Lennon says, that we could still save the train, but Jackson Browne’s “The Pretender,” released at the end of ’76, put a pretty conclusive last nail in the coffin. As you can see, I still fall prey to the temptation.
You are absolutely right that the TtC warns that calling something good makes wickedness. It’s something that Westerners raised on dualism have a hard time remembering. But the TtC sees no conflict between equality and individuality because human intervention is not required.
Tao te Ching #77 (Le Guin rendition)
Similarly, humanity’s oneness is not a goal to be reached using whatever means are required; it’s a fact to be perceived. “I am because we are” is a good statement of it, seems to me. And that “we” just keeps extending out to the rest of life and this beautiful planet that created and sustains us all. And I criticize old Ezra and his scribes for their Jewish supremacism, but that second Genesis myth, despite some faults, captures a core issue for our species. Maybe it’s the combination of big brains and those dexterous hands that makes it so easy to succumb to the serpent’s offer to “be as gods,” but whatever it is, things have now reached the level of absurdity. And now, some of the biggest proponents of transhumanism are grabbing everything within their considerable reach to build a Golden Calf.
Now in my dotage, I’ve not only given up on reviving the spirit of the counterculture but also on the hope of seeing humanity awakening to our circumstances and throwing that switch (must have been playing with Lionel trains that makes that metaphor so vivid for me) But I have granddaughters and just cannot let go of some sort of allowance for the possibility of the emergence of a New World post-Jackpot, the popular term around here. In that regard, I’m interested in discussions of “where we went wrong,” not just we Boomers who were frightened into conformity as Nixon and Haldeman observed, but humanity since the time of agriculture or surplus or whatever it was that set us off from the roundhouse headed for the cliff. In another one of these wonderful discussions on NC–and thanks to you for your stimulating ideas and kind response to my being triggered by Parvini–I proposed that it was humans in large aggregates that was the sine qua non of our destructive quest for divinity–Tower of Babel redux. The next day, I was pursuing my Friday habit of listening to Nate Hagens’s weekly “Frankly,” and he laid out something of a TOE built around the idea that evolved human traits that served us well and posed no threat when we were hunting and gathering in bands become characteristics that lock us in to destructive behavior when our group moves beyond the Dunbar number. I think Hagens makes a good start not at “the truth” but at an understanding of why we’ve ended up where we are when the elephants and chimps and dolphins and octopi have been content to fit into their niche. He addresses your point about a “meaningful place” along the way, but notes that in a Dunbar band, there is no lowly place–all places are essential and valued by necessity. I am because we are.
So from the dark place of conceding that Western civilization is headed for the land fill, I cling to hope for a remnant that will head down a radically different track that will put those big brains and dexterous hands to better use than building skyscrapers, H-bombs and giant pickup trucks.
Mr Moon Pie, no need for apologies. I have long respected you. I remind myself that the flaws of the boomers have been shared by those of us who have come since, often for the worse. But I, who feel myself part of almost no group, feel acutely the difference in generations.
My tendency is less towards belief in a transcendent ideological truth than towards balance. I believe in productive tension. I do not believe an ideal ideology or political regime could exist. It would be bad if everyone agreed with me, or with anyone. Iain McGilchrist talks about such tensions, like opposing muscles that allow for precise movements. I find my beliefs often counterbalance against whatever mood is dominant. If conservatism gains the upper hand here in Canada it is likely I will swing the other way again. A couple of years ago I was concerned that I agreed with Naked Capitalism too much. I no longer do. I may well be wrong – some of the people I read are not nice – but the only place to go forward from is where I stand.
You write:
Ah. That is interesting. I like that. I will have to sit with that.
Marx:
I think Marx tells only half the story. We need understanding and we need action: but these are incompatible. If your aim is to change the world this will render you unable to see clearly. If you see clearly, you will lack the certainty and solidarity required to make change. We need both kinds of people. For myself, I would rather see clearly, which I believe entails saying what I think is true when it is politically incorrect, even ugly. Though hesitantly: speaking makes commitments that can be psychologically hard to abandon.
How did we end up here? I tried to come up with candidates. The list was long and overlapping: energy and resource limits, financialization, institutional rot, liberal atomization, capitalism and inequality, psychology and mental illness (including psychopathic leaders), religion (lack thereof), technological dependence, health (e.g. environmental pollutants), feminization (not the right word: many women and men are acting against type, we have hyper-aggressive leaders, emotional dysregulation – it’s probably more accurate to say that the dark sides of femininity and masculinity are way out of balance with the light sides of both), polarizing media, elite overproduction, natural civilizational cycles, McGilchrist’s ascendance of the left brain (one such cycle).
You refer back to the rise of agriculture. I do wonder about that. I wonder how much I am romanticizing lives that were short but intense. Plumbing, antibiotics and dentistry make up for a lot of harms. Did Achilles make the right choice? Athens or Jerusalem? or the Tao?
The question of where we went wrong assumes that there is, or could have been, a right way. Maybe not. If there is no progress to give us meaning we can fall back on the comfort of cycles that, like the seasons, rise and fall. If we are transhuman, then the essential human cycle of being born, growing old, and handing off to the next generation comes to an end. History without progress, direction without meaning. I find this terrifying. Then the best I have come up with is imagine that there is no time, everything that is past is part of an eternal whole.
I like Paul Kingsnorth for his gentleness. He wrote a series of blog posts since published as Against the Machine in which he summarized many thinkers about our situation. What particularly sticks with me is Watch the Great Fall:
I hope somehow beyond all my flaws and angers I will find the grace and courage he speaks of. If we are able to look for it, I suspect we will find that we are witnessing something amazing and mysterious.
I have far fewer disagreements with you than I do with Parvini, and I’m a little mystified about why you would cite him. Based on that article alone, it seems to me that what bothered Parvini was Lennon’s attack on tribalizing institutions, like private property, and his casting off of societal norms and fads in a search for more meaningful, personal values. According to “God,” those values began with his love for Yoko to which I can only respond, “To each his own.”
Obviously, I can’t speak to your experience, but I do recognize myself in your description of your Boomer teachers, and can try to offer something in the way of an apologia. From my perspective on lived history, something wonderful was lost when Kent State and McGovern’s defeat ended the hope of throwing a switch and diverting the train from traveling the path to destruction. At first, I thought the switch was still in our grasp, and if we could just mobilize new people to “join us,” as Lennon says, that we could still save the train, but Jackson Browne’s “The Pretender,” released at the end of ’76, put a pretty conclusive last nail in the coffin. As you can see, I still fall prey to the temptation.
You are absolutely right that the TtC warns that calling something good makes wickedness. It’s something that Westerners raised on dualism have a hard time remembering. But the TtC sees no conflict between equality and individuality because human intervention is not required.
Tao te Ching #77 (Le Guin rendition)
Similarly, humanity’s oneness is not a goal to be reached using whatever means are required; it’s a fact to be perceived. “I am because we are” is a good statement of it, seems to me. And that “we” just keeps extending out to the rest of life and this beautiful planet that created and sustains us all. And I criticize old Ezra and his scribes for their Jewish supremacism, but that second Genesis myth, despite some faults, captures a core issue for our species. Maybe it’s the combination of big brains and those dexterous hands that makes it so easy to succumb to the serpent’s offer to “be as gods,” but whatever it is, things have now reached the level of absurdity. And now, some of the biggest proponents of transhumanism are grabbing everything within their considerable reach to build a Golden Calf.
Now in my dotage, I’ve not only given up on reviving the spirit of the counterculture but also on the hope of seeing humanity awakening to our circumstances and throwing that switch (must have been playing with Lionel trains that makes that metaphor so vivid for me) But I have granddaughters and just cannot let go of some sort of allowance for the possibility of the emergence of a New World post-Jackpot, the popular term around here. In that regard, I’m interested in discussions of “where we went wrong,” not just we Boomers who were frightened into conformity as Nixon and Haldeman observed, but humanity since the time of agriculture or surplus or whatever it was that set us off from the roundhouse headed for the cliff. In another one of these wonderful discussions on NC–and thanks to you for your stimulating ideas and kind response to my being triggered by Parvini–I proposed that it was humans in large aggregates that was the sine qua non of our destructive quest for divinity–Tower of Babel redux. The next day, I was pursuing my Friday habit of listening to Nate Hagens’s weekly “Frankly,” and he laid out something of a TOE built around the idea that evolved human traits that served us well and posed no threat when we were hunting and gathering in bands become characteristics that lock us in to destructive behavior when our group moves beyond the Dunbar number. I think Hagens makes a good start
not at “the truth” but at an understanding of why we’ve ended up where we are when the elephants and chimps and dolphins and octopi have been content to fit into their niche. He addresses your point about a “meaningful place” along the way, but notes that in a Dunbar band, there is no lowly place–all places are essential and valued by necessity. I am because we are.
So from the dark place of conceding that Western civilization is headed for the land fill, I cling to hope for a remnant that will head down a radically different track that will put those big brains and dexterous hands to better use than building skyscrapers, H-bombs and giant pickup trucks.
Apparently this is an exclusive to the Guardian “Top US banks weigh suing federal regulator over crypto banking rules”- https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/09/bank-policy-institute-regulator-lawsuit Crypto firms apply to get licenses under the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
IIRC, the OCC was known to be a more lenient regulator. Also, why Guardian is breaking this story?
We can’t even bother to fund the government anymore, much like we haven’t heard about the ObamaCare subsidies ever again
Travelers encounter long waits at some airports as DHS shutdown affects security checkpoints (ABC)
America is going great!
Lindsey jumps the shark. From Breaking Points.
utube, ~15+ minutes.
Lindsey Graham COACHED Bibi On Manipulating Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIU985RMi5s
Regarding the article on USDA’s new stringent H5 testing for milk: Does anyone know what’s prompted this?
Fwiw I would be absolutely amazed if milking machines are the main source of transmission. The recommendations in the article sound like the equivalent of hand-washing and surface cleaning in a hospital setting (with some expensive sounding biotech products tossed in). They’re all well and good, but no obstacle to airborne transmission.
Not sure why you would object to regular 3rd party testing and the requirement that they sterilize the equipment for 30 seconds on 1% iodine. I’m pretty sure Yves and other NC advice on that subject has kept me Covid free (AFAIK).
I didn’t object. I’m wondering why they’ve chosen to intensify testing now, and observing that the hygiene measures recommended in the article will likely have little effect on transmission within the herd.
This is within the context of USDA having lied egregiously about the initial outbreak in Texas.
Btw, unless things have changed a whole lot since my cow milking days, it’s the teats that get the iodine, the equipment gets hot water.
Iran rolled up your spy network comms? Go to the back-up plan!
V32 is a station sending numbers in the Persian (aka Farsi) language, spoken in Iran, believed to be related to the 2026 Iran war. It is believed to be an adversarial operation targeted against the Islamic Republic regime, although its exact origin and purpose remain unknown.
https://priyom.org/number-stations/other/v32
The news there is that they’ve moved to 7842kHz and that it’s been narrowed down to an area in Western Europe, specifically a country that wouldn’t sniff out the location and shut it down.
To speculate on which vassal it might be, Germany seems more sympathetic to the aims of the aggressors than the other possible sites.