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Links 4/27/2026

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California cities seek to bless polyamorous unions. Lawyers warn it will get messy in court Los Angeles Times

The Kind of Short Stories People Really Want to Read Amateur Criticism

Climate/Environment

War, El Niño, Pestilence, and Famine: The Coming Shock to Global Food SuppliesCraig Tindale

Climate and the Global Famine of 1876–78 American Meteorological Society

Pandemics

I developed Long COVID while practicing medicine. The system had no place for me. The Sick Times

China?

A Chinese-Style Kill Line? Sinification

How China’s young workers are securing their future even as AI disrupts job market, triggers pay cuts Business Times

Southeast Asia

Blackouts in the Philippines as power bills soar Intellinews

The Pentagon Needed Rare Earths—and Found a Supplier in Malaysia WSJ

The Koreas

CIA RAN MK-ULTRA EXPERIMENTS ON PRISONERS OF WAR IN U.S. CUSTODY, DECLASSIFIED DOCS CONFIRM The Intercept

Syraqistan

Israel accuses Hezbollah of violating “ceasefire”, while Iran takes nuclear file off the table and USrael threatens Nord Stream-like sabotage GeoPolitiQ

Is the US Military Recommending No Further Strikes on Iran? Larry Johnson

Iran caused more extensive damage to U.S. military bases than publicly known NBC News

Iran offers U.S. deal to reopen strait but postpone nuclear talks Axios. From WH messenger Ravid so a heavy dose of salt recommended.

The Emerging Push to Extend Some US Benefits to IDF Soldiers Military.com

Government Press Release Admits That The U.S. Attacked Iran ‘At The Request’ Of Israel. The Dissident

***

Israeli Bulldozers Smash Solar Panels, Olive Trees in Southern Lebanon ‘Infrastructure’ Demolition Antiwar

Displaced Lebanese Pool Money to Buy Satellite Images to See What Remains of their Homes Drop Site

European Disunion

China expresses ‘serious’ concern over EU’s industrial act, vows to safeguard ‘legitimate’ rights Anadolu Agency

Britain and allies could pool weapons funding in ‘defence bank’ The Telegraph

Germany’s AfD hits record 28% support, overtaking ruling CDU/CSU in new poll Polskie Radio

Police believe New IRA may be behind station attack as they launch attempted murder investigation Irish Post

Hidden History: How Mossad Infiltrated Italy Kit Klarenberg

Africa

Mali Targeted by Widespread and Coordinated Armed Attacks All Africa

General Sadio Camara: Mali’s Defense Minister and the Architect of the Russia-Wagner Alliance Modern Ghana. Killed Saturday.

American Moves In Libya Aim To Sever Russia’s Air Bridge To The Sahelian Alliance Andrew Korybko

Old Blighty

King’s visit to ‘revitalise’ relationship with US, says UK ambassador BBC

The Palantir pipeline: how Peter Thiel’s surveillance firm hired more than 30 senior UK officialsThe Nerve

Major fire erupts at UK base used for US bombers (VIDEOS) RT

New Not-So-Cold War

UK rejects suggestion British jets downed Russian drones UK Defence Journal

Multiple explosions erupt at one of Russia’s largest oil refineries in a long-range attack London Loves Business

ZOG destruction? Events in Ukraine

Russia under construction? Julian MacFarlane

South of the Border

This gold comes from a Colombian drug cartel mine. It should never end up at the U.S. Mint. But it does. New York Times (Robin)

(Another) Trump Assassination Attempt

The alleged shooter:

Read White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman Cole Allen’s full anti-Trump manifesto New York Post

Assassin Wasn’t on FBI’s Radar, Sources Say Ken Klippenstein

Is it really? Readers?

The aftermath:

And prior to the shooting:

AI

ChatGPT Confessed to a Crime It Couldn’t Possibly Have Committed The Intercept

Trump 2.0

Trump fires all 24 members of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s governing body Science

Imperial Collapse Watch

Chartbook 443 Hard-working hegemon? Why 21st-century America is not like Edwardian Britain. Adam Tooze

Data Centers Reveal America’s Economic Development Brain Rot Boondoggle

The US imports 82% of its large power transformers. How it got there, and what it will take to rebuild the capability. Frontier Map

Monopoly Round-Up: How a Chinese Finger Trap Explains America’s Political Dilemma Matt Stoller

Police State Watch

New Mexico Becomes the Latest State to End Cooperation With ICE Under New Law Truthout (robin K)

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

Mike Johnson’s Crusade to Renew Warrantless NSA Spying on Americans Culminates This Week Glenn Greenwald

The Accelerationists

MUSKISM AS FORDISM Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, LPE Project

Economy

America’s Pandemic Car Bubble Is Now Trapping Buyers in Debt WSJ

Dire Straits, A Shock That Reveals the System Savage Minds

Healthcare?

How the Iran conflict is reshaping hospital supply chains Becker’s Hospital Review

Class Warfare

From car and phone to tractor owners, a populist wave is rising to end the ‘captive’ repair economy CNBC

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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95 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “As cities bless polyamorous unions, lawyers warn it will get messy – Los Angeles Times”

    Lawyers also argue in court that the plural of spouse is spice. :)

  2. AG

    fb post by Steven Donziger – “about my journey from Harvard Law to the Amazon rainforest to prison”:

    “(…)
    I was honored to speak to students at Amherst College in Massachusetts about my journey from Harvard Law to the Amazon rainforest to prison in retaliation for helping Ecuadorian rainforest communities win the historic $10 billion pollution case against Chevron. I was joined by my close friend and the legendary civil rights attorney Marty Garbus, who has practiced law for six decades and who has represented luminaries such as Nelson Mandela, Daniel Ellsberg, and Vaclav Havel. (I am also deeply grateful to Marty for representing me against Chevron’s attacks.)
    Amherst is known as a brainy school and the questions came fast and furious. Most of those attending were either aspiring lawyers or environmental justice advocates. Many wanted to know how someone in the US could possibly be prosecuted and jailed directly by an oil company, as Chevron did to me in my contempt of court case that led to 993 days of arbitrary and illegal detention as determined by five distinguished jurists from the United Nations. I explained that many experts considered me to be corporate political prisoner. Others wanted to know if we still believe the rule of law exists in the United States given that the Supreme Court seems all in for Trump. I answered by saying it was in a state of “near-collapse” but there was still a lot of space to make good things happen as a lawyer. I also explained how smart strategy can win a difficult case even when the other side has vastly superior resources and engages in subterfuge to undermine the process, as Chevron did in Ecuador. The discussion was free-wheeling while touching on a number of substantive issues.
    I want to thank Amherst students @alex._mcintosh and Amelia Cogan for helping to organize the event, which was sponsored by several student groups including the Amherst College Law Review and the Environmental Justice Alliance. I also want to thank Marty for giving me the high honor of sharing the stage.
    Bottom line: most of the students plan to embark on careers dedicated to protecting our rights in the face of the Trump regime’s assault on the Constitution. I find that deeply encouraging.
    (…)”

    one reader comment:

    I’ve been thinking of a class-action civil suit by fisher people against the big carbon-unfixers like the one you mentioned.
    My wife’s extended family in Bogo, Cebu, Philippines are all fishers.

  3. AG

    fb post by Glenn Diesen

    “(…)
    Moral framing in the media has hardened into something far more extreme—and it is actively undermining the possibility of compromise and peace. Conflicts are reduced to simplistic moral binaries, reinforced by emotional cues that dictate how events must be interpreted. Complexity and historical context – whether it is NATO expansionism and its role in the Ukraine war or decades of efforts to defeat Iran – are purged from the narrative as they do not conform to the assumed moral clarity. Any attempt at objectivity is dismissed as a moral failure. This culture of self-righteous certainty, cloaked as moral clarity, promotes a single, unexamined narrative that denounces mutual understanding as appeasement.
    (…)”

    p.s. What Diesen too often does not address, imho: This moralistic posturing is dishonest. It only papers over the highly illegal often genocidal conduct that has always been the main feature of imperialism. Use force to rob others of their resources, kill them if it helps and enrich yourself. He speaks too often about the fake legitimacy applied by these criminals, instead of making clear that none of it is actually true, correct or even worthy to discuss. He talks too much like a lawyer instead of a Marxist historian (which he obviously is not.) But by this he unwillingly or not grants them the legitimacy they themselves already take for granted. Instead of pushing back. Hard.

  4. AG

    re: Ukraine v. RU culture

    This is via Glenn Diesen quoting Ukrainian state sources.
    Insanity as has become standard:

    71% of Ukrainians still consume Russian-language content, ministry study finds

    More than two-thirds of Ukrainians still consume Russian-language content, according to a study released by Ukraine’s Culture Ministry and shared by Culture Minister Tetyana Berezhna on Facebook on Apr. 22.

    The Ukrainian fb piece by Berezhna would be here
    (machine-translation by me):

    “(…)
    The demand for Ukrainian content is growing faster than its quantity.
    Together with partners, we presented the results of a study of Ukrainian media consumption. It very clearly shows where we are now in the fight for our own cultural space.
    A few key insights and figures:
    🔹51% of Ukrainians consume significantly more content in Ukrainian, another 14% have partially switched over the past 4 years.
    🔹At the same time, 71% still consume Russian-language content, almost a quarter do it every day. Among teenagers, 59% consume Russian-language content at least once a month.
    🔹Young people spend up to 16 hours a day in the digital environment, where their identity is being formed today.
    🔹The biggest deficit is high-quality Ukrainian children’s and entertainment content.
    Key insight: Ukrainians want to consume Ukrainian. But they choose what is more accessible, what they are used to watching, what is more in the infospace, and what algorithms throw up.
    In these conditions, content becomes a tool of influence — Russia systematically uses it as part of the information war and invests billions of dollars in it.
    At the event, together with Helen Kovalska, Yuriy Melnyk, Yevheniya Blyznyuk, Nataliia Kryvda and Serhiy Sternenko, we talked about how to strengthen Ukrainian content and reduce the influence of the Russian product. I leave a link to the recording of the presentation in the first comment.
    The key focus is to create a sufficient amount of high-quality Ukrainian content that will win the competition for attention. Support creators and initiatives.
    The quality, regularity and visibility of Ukrainian content form consumption habits — this is the only way the market changes.
    This is precisely what Volodymyr Zelensky’s initiative, Tysyachovesna, is aimed at. This is 4 billion hryvnias of investment in the production of Ukrainian content — the largest program to support culture in the history of Ukraine. It covers 7 categories — from cinema and TV series to animation, music and content for social networks. All categories and topics are determined on the basis of research.
    There are so many talents and strong creators in Ukraine, whose names are already shaping modern Ukrainian culture. The state’s task is to provide resources and scale.
    When Ukrainian content becomes accessible, high-quality and present in everyday life, it will become a natural choice.
    Thank you to the MHP-Hromady Foundation and Gradus for the partnership and in-depth research. Thank you to the Kyiv School of Economics for the hospitality and the opportunity to host the event.
    (…)”

    The entire YT panel in Ukrainian at the Kiev School of Economics:

    How to reduce the influence of Russian content in Ukraine?
    140 min.
    https://www.youtube.com/live/lLxwOm2uioI

    1. JP

      Shared language is probably the single most unifying element of a culture for various reasons of nuance, history and media exposure. My friend who speaks Russian says he can understand almost everything he hears in Ukrainian.

  5. Bob from Kansas

    “The Kind of Short Stories People Really Want to Read” Amateur Criticism

    I loved short stories since I was very young. My favorite is “A Clean Well-lighted Place” by Ernest Hemingway. You can find the PDF for free if you want to read it.

    I appreciated the authors appreciation of the short stories all around us. I started to see a trend in TV shows where they turned a TV show into a movie, cut into pieces over 8 or 9 episodes. If I want to see a movie I will watch a movie! If you watch the old Star Treks shows and compare them to the most recent shows you will see what I mean. Shows like “Lost” are a great example.

    If I want to relax I want a story that resolves itself in a short time. I have enough unending drama in my own life that never ends.

    Some shows are going back to these roots, like the show “Tracker”, and so I am not shocked it has such a large following. It has a theme running through it but that theme is thoroughly in the background. Each episode is a short story on its’ own.

    1. Wukchumni

      I grew up on MAD magazine, the New Yorker and O. Henry, which I think permanently warped me, not that there is anything wrong with that.

      You might not think you’d be interested in the subject matter in most any O. Henry tale before laying into them, but he wrote with word magnets that drew you in like so many moths to a light bulb, and always with an unexpected accompanying twist.

      2. Dalepues

        Thanks for mentioning O.Henry; he is one of my favorite short story writers. He also wrote a novel, Cabbages and Kings. I discovered this book while on a travel stop in Trujillo, Honduras. William Sydney Porter, O.Henry’s actual name, had been indicted for embezzlement by a Texas bank and he went on the lam in Honduras. I happened to be in Trujillo to photograph the grave of William Walker, executed there in 1860, and met the adult children of American missionaries who had been raised in Trujillo. They mentioned O.Henry’s book (and the fact that Columbus had landed in Trujillo on his fourth voyage to the Americas). As far as history goes, O.Henry was in pretty famous company.

    2. The Rev Kev

      I’m seeing exactly these sort of short stories on YouTube generated by AI. For example. You might have a guy who pays for his sister’s wedding but is deliberately not invited so he cancels all the venues. Or a guy is sacked at work and it is discovered that he has the patents that the company depend on. Or a waitress warns a rich businessman that the deal that he is about to sign is crooked. Call them modern fairy tales. Different versions and details but you get the idea.

      1. Pat

        I have fallen into the rabbit hole that are “HOA Karen” stories that have a fun sub genre of malicious compliance sarcastic rich versions. There are also clueless elites mistreating people they don’t think should share the first class plane cabin with them, Hell’s Angels bikers protecting children, and small town corrupt law enforcement picking the wrong victim. It isn’t all cohesive memes, but there are some favorites. And most have some seriously and deeply intoned moral ending.

        If you are as perverse as I am, particularly during bouts of insomnia, the AI problems become humorous. There is the inability to deal with reading numbers (9-1-1 becomes nine hundred eleven. I cannot even begin with the weird variations of AI narration translation of dollar amounts written numerically rather than spelled out.) There are the pauses after Mr. Or Mrs. where the punctuation is treated as a sentence period. But best of all is repeated narrative where whole sections of the story are repeated sometime multiple times. I don’t know if edits don’t erase previous versions or the outline references trigger repeats but it is often unintentionally funny. Annoying but funny. They can run anywhere from half an hour to an hour although occasionally even longer. But are complete.

    3. Carolinian

      Star Trek and Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock presents–those earlier television series were indeed like short story anthologies.

      Whereas our new streaming world has the goal of fitting all stories–elaborate or simple–into an eight episode package that never really resolves because resolution would kill the “franchise.” So even good streaming shows will often have a few “filibuster” episodes that don’t advance the plot but are there to help make it eight. Since I watch everything via disc or file, the skip ahead buttons are very useful. In our digital age even movies can be skimmed when more experienced viewers have “been there, done that.”

      1. The Rev Kev

        Of course you might have a situation like the TV series “Stargate Universe” which got cancelled after only two seasons leaving all sort of story lines forever in the air. That kinda sucked.

        1. AG

          Amazon/MGM allegedly presented plans for a new Stargate Series past winter as Emmerich contradicted plans for a STARGATE sequel. fwiw maybe his best work to this date.

        2. Oregon Lawhobbit

          Or Firefly, which tried to tie the second season up with a movie.

          You’d think that a story with a 6 or 8 hour “time budget” would make for some far more interesting storytelling than a single 90-120 minute movie.

          You’d be wrong.

          1. David B. Harrison

            Firefly was cancelled by the morons at Fox. It only lasted 14 episodes ( which were shown out of order ). The fans willed the movie Serenity into existence so the show would have an ending.

        1. tongorad

          CBS revived radio drama in the 1970’s with the CBS Radio Mystery Theater (1974 -82). Episodes are posted on youtube, some complete with period ads. “The theater of the mind, The fear you can hear,” good stuff.

  6. The Rev Kev

    Was just thinking that in America they have what is called driving season which I believes runs from May through to September. With rising gas prices, I wonder how much driving will be done. Wanna go on a long roadtrip? Better get a loan for the gas needed first.

    1. Amateur Socialist

      I had a weeklong drive planned for Memorial Day. But now I am wondering if gas supplies will hold up that long (at any price, a steep price jump can also mean some stations won’t have enough. Or Any).

      1. Bob from Kansas

        I am driving to Washington from Kansas starting next week. Glad I caught somewhat of a break, thought prices are starting to come back up. I did not think of actually gas shortages. That would suck.

      2. The Rev Kev

        If you go, it might be wise to have some fuel in a can in your boot so that you don’t get stranded at an empty gas station. The double blockade is still in place so I can’t see gas prices getting any cheaper in the next four weeks.

    2. Carolinian

      One can but hope that the crisis lasts long enough to kill Ford 150 mania. To quote those old Volkswagen ads, “small is beautiful.”

      1. The Rev Kev

        At the time of the last fuel crisis back in the 70s the docks were crowded with small cars because Detroit said that with their cars that Big Was Beautiful and Americans did not want smaller cars. After the fuel crisis hit, all those cars on the docks disappeared almost overnight.

    3. Oregon Lawhobbit

      Memorial Day – the start of That Season, yep.

      Gas just touched 5 bucks a gallon here in the Oregon Desert – but we’re still, oddly enough, better off than Portland.

      1. ambrit

        From what I have read, the Great American Desert has always been ‘better’ than Portland.
        Do you have Roadrunner and Coyote contests there? ACME wants to know.

  7. Samuel Conner

    I wonder whether it might be that part of the explanation of Secret Service failures to follow protocols (mentioned in the linked Larry Johnson post) is related to accumulating cognitive impairments due to repeated COVID and/or Long COVID neurological sequelae.

    Maybe Chinese researchers will be able to develop diagnostic procedures for COVID neurological sequelae.

    1. Carolinian

      It’s telling that they dragged Vance out of the room before Trump. Sending a message? O’Donnell even asked Trump about this and he lamely claimed he told them to hold off for a few seconds so he could see what was going on.

      Don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to work.

      1. JP

        Possibly certain agents are assigned to protect specific persons. Maybe JD’s responded faster then Trump’s

        1. ThirtyOne

          What I saw was security having to haul Trump up off the floor before scurrying off stage.

        2. Alex Cox

          LBJ’s secret service team certainly responded faster and more effectively than JFK’s.

      2. ambrit

        Can anyone tell if Trump’s Secret Service team communicates internally in Hebrew? That would explain a lot.

  8. Frank

    How the Iran conflict is reshaping hospital supply chains.

    I read the article and one of the discussants actually said this:

    “Geopolitical volatility forces us to hyper-focus on utilization within high-volume, committed contract structures,” said Michael Alfaro, director of materials management. “While we leverage these relationships and hold our primary partners strictly accountable, the reality of sudden allocation shifts demands an engineered, parallel sourcing architecture.”

  9. Wukchumni

    Climate and the Global Famine of 1876–78 American Meteorological Society
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~
    A great find there, the El Nino lurking is the largest recorded and similar to the 1876-78 version.

  10. The Rev Kev

    “The Emerging Push to Extend Some US Benefits to IDF Soldiers”

    If you have 20,00 Americans fighting for a foreign country, doesn’t that make them mercenaries? And how many of them have committed war crimes in the service of that foreign country? So now they want to put the American taxpayer on the hook for their benefits rather than Israel? A country that has universal healthcare as well as free college for vets? If it were up to me, I would punish those 20,000 Americans. I would force them to use VA hospitals, clinics and medical centers for their healthcare needs. That would teach them.

    1. flora

      Why are dual US/Isr citizens allowed to run for US Congress? Divided loyalties, etc. Foreign direct influence on Congress beyond monetary campaign donations?
      No dual citizen is allowed to run for Pres, so why for Congress?

      And, the US funds Isr’s univeral healthcare, while US citizens get what someone described as universal profitcare instead of healthcare.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Gets really on the nose when you have members of Congress wearing their IDF uniforms to the Capital building.

      2. doug

        A broader question: Why are dual citizens allowed? Makes no sense. One can’t be ‘loyal’ to two countries, IMO.
        But sure as heck, no dual citizens should be allowed to run for office…

        1. ambrit

          To be “fair,” back in 1941, single citizens who happened to be of Japanese ancestry were deprived of their chattels and incarcerated in concentration camps for the duration.

    2. CarlH

      I am sorry, but your swipe at the VA is misguided. I have been utilizing VA hospitals and other resources for decades now, and while it has had it’s share of problems, it is the best healthcare available in the US, unless you are very wealthy. Some facilities are better than others, but on the whole, I love it. I wish I could get my other family members under it’s umbrella and out of the clutches of the hellscape that passes for healthcare in the private system that the rest of America is forced to endure. The VA performs admirably despite successive administrations doing their utmost to privatize it, cutting the budget and staff, and other forms of more covert sabotage. They certainly don’t want a “socialist” example of healthcare that works. The real problem with VA care is that the politicos have made it so hard to be deemed eligible for the full suite of services, a problem I fought for years until my disability claim finally went through. I blame the politicians, not the VA, for the problems I have encountered. I believe that the reputation of the entire VA suffered from the highly publicized failures of Walter Reed many years ago, which came down to problems in that particular system and its’ administration, and to the much publicized difficulties in getting services, due to the issues I discussed in regard to becoming eligible.

  11. Jason Boxman

    This country is trash; AI surveillance in our cars, but no legislation to fix the deadly ultra bright LED headlines that new cars have now; thought it was just me, but others complain about this on the Twitter as well. It’s ghastly.

    2. chuck roast

      Back in the aughts DOT was tasked with approving those new headlights. As I recall they were approved as replacement headlights, but were prohibited on stock vehicles. So, in the face of manufacturing pressure for approval on manufactured vehicles the DOT did the right thing…they did a Federal Register notice requesting public comment on their proposal to permit the new usage. DOT was inundated with more negative comments on this proposal than on any FR notice they had ever written. They promptly did the wrong thing.

  12. Bartleby

    On Cole Allen and the mysterious X post:

    Has anyone pointed out that the avatar on that post is Pepe the From from qAnon/chan fame?

    1. Screwball

      I’m struggling to understand what this is all about, and I know nothing of Pepe and qAnon. What does it prove, not prove? There were also reports his name was in searches around the globe.

      It was interesting. I happened to be on X when this went down so it was kind of fun to watch the responses on social media. Within minutes it was called fake. Today, many believe that. As usual, what to believe and not to believe. They did catch a guy. Is he fake too?

      2. Bartleby

        John Michael Greer did a series of posts on chandom and Pepe a few years back, my memories of that series are driving my thought process here

        I think the explanation in the post is plausible : create an account, privately create thousands of private posts with randomly generated popular names, wait for one of the names to pop up in the news, delete all of the other posts and make that one public.

        But what’s the payoff, why do all that work, cui bono? In this theory, it’s kind of like painting your tag on a bridge or a building — forcing passerby to look at your meme. In this case, your Frog God and, apparently, a “Time Machine” reference that I don’t get.

        I’m more interested/concerned about our presidential press secretary’s comments…

      3. Sam Culotte

        Something here doesn’t add up. Apparently Cole Allen was firing bullets all over the place including hitting some security guy in his bullet-proof vest. And yet, miraculously, he is still alive!

        Having read about other confrontations with law-enforcement (many involving nothing more than a knife, a toy gun, or a TV remote) I would have thought that he would now be dead, shot through with daylight, a fatal case of lead poisoning, his bullet-riddled body looking like a target at a shooting range. Not so it seems. Therefore I’ll wait until the REAL story comes out.

        In related news, the incident has provided a welcome distraction for the easily distracted Trump. He now seems to think that a new ballroom is needed in order to provide better security. Therefore, the cure for violence in America? Better ballrooms! So saith the President (sic), whose little brain and impulsive character always welcome a new “problem” as relief from the boredom of that whole Iran “imbroglio”.

    2. lyman alpha blob

      The thing I found very odd was the tail end of the shooter’s “manifesto” where he talks about the lack of security. I may be missing something, but it sure sounds like that was written after he entered the building, at a point where you would think time would be of the essence if your plan is to shoot some people in a crowded room.

        1. lyman alpha blob

          Aha – thank you. That makes sense. Now if I can just figure how the shooter is still alive…

  13. Carolinian

    That Adam Tooze seems very good to this non economist because it’s a history lesson about the difference between the British Empire–a “working hegemon”–versus the pure rentier, American re-enactor empire that has now curdled into the Trump Three Stooges empire. For all the terrible things the Brits did they did build nations and infrastructure. They also invested in the USA itself.

    One can see from the data why Hobson focused on the Boer war. In 1913 Britain had almost as much invested in South Africa as it did in all of its sprawling South Asian possessions. It was British investment that financed the Mexican oil industry. And it was also British money that paid for the world’s largest cattle ranch, the XIT cattle ranch, in Texas. As one Texas historian writes:

    British investors helped to introduce barbed- wire fences, steel windmills, deep wells, and better breeds of cattle into Northwest Texas, experimented with various crops, hired Texas “cattle bosses” for a few thousand dollars a year and Texas “cowboys” for twenty-five to thirty dollars a month, paid such taxes as they could not avoid, supplemented the income of some state officials and more lobbyists, and finally, in desperation, made considerable effort to attract settlers …

    Article is worth a look IMO.

    1. Wukchumni

      In the UK in 1987, the entire English investment in the Confederacy was auctioned off in one lot, fetching $623k.

      Merry Olde recouped over 1% of it’s investment from 125 years prior, jolly good show!
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

      LONDON — A collection of ‘worthless’ Confederate bonds from the Civil War were sold at auction Tuesday to an American coin dealer for $623,000, Sotheby’s auction house announced.

      The winning bid for the 75,000 bond certificates was received by California coin dealer John Saunders, who bought them with Heritage Rare Coins of Dallas, a spokeswoman for Sotheby’s said.

      The certificates — once worth about $60 million — were originally issued to British and European sympathizers who loaned cash to the Confederate cause in the American Civil War. They became worthless when the Confederacy lost in 1865 and the U.S. government refused to honor the South’s debts.

      For the past 100 years, the bonds have been stored in a London warehouse that narrowly escaped flooding by the Thames River and bombing by the Germans in World War II.

      The certificates are in mint condition and bear illustrations of ships and cotton bales, buildings and landmarks of the Southern states and Confederate soldiers and their leaders in battle or resting by camp fires at night.

      https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/11/24/Confederate-bonds-sold-for-623000/5872564728400/

      1. Carolinian

        Guess the Lost Cause ain’t worth what it used to be.

        As for Tooze, his notions of what an empire should and shouldn’t be might not include the Romans who conquered and then pillaged including stealing the inhabitants. Manufacturing surpluses probably weren’t a big thing back then.

    2. AG

      thanks
      p.s. Vita Sackville´s “Family History” evolves as a praise of sorts around this old guard.

  14. The Rev Kev

    “The US imports 82% of its large power transformers. How it got there, and what it will take to rebuild the capability.”

    Very much worth reading this article. In fact, if you were talking about what happened to American industry over the past half century or more, this would be a very good illustration. They may want to build those industries back again but where will they get the experienced people from that makes those industries possible? Especially since they only want to pay them McDonald’s wages.

    1. hereweare

      The article says the manufacturing process can’t be automated because each transformer’s different. I wonder how long it’ll be before someone, most likely China, comes up with a way.

    2. scott s.

      Enjoyed it. My father for much of his career was a first-level supervisor for Allis-Chalmers. Though he was primarily in motor-generator most of that work is adjacent to the transformer business. In his view the problem A-C had was being No 3 behind GE and Westinghouse in the power markets. This led to A-C having to aggressively market on cost with reduction in engineering staff. Eventually A-C jobbed-out engineering to Siemens AG but by then the writing was pretty much on the wall. I don’t think Siemens was that interested in the production capacity.

      Today the West Allis, WI shops have been turned into retail space. Not sure what happened to Pittsburgh works, which made smaller transformers.

      Most histories of Allis-Chalmers focus on the farm implement/tractor business and don’t really examine its long history in power electronics and related technology (turbines, pumps, etc).

    3. Glen

      Here’s a recent video by Asianometry that covers Fanuc, but also the history of the American machine tool industry:

      Fanuc and the Numerical Control Revolution
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgXm4G-qapA

      We had more than our share of Fanuc controlled CNCs at the factory, but we had more Mazak CNCs. I had the pleasure of giving Tomohisa Yamazaki a tour of our factory so he could see what we made with our Mazak CNC machines.

      As to rebuilding America’s industry, I just don’t think it will happen with the current American elites. They just don’t think it’s important – as strange as that may sound, but rememebr that most of them became billionaires by being part of off shoring America’s industry.

  15. pjay

    – “AI in your car will determine if you’re sober and fit to drive, automatically turning off the vehicle if it determines you’re a danger on the road.”

    My brain’s immediate translation without conscious prompting:

    “AI in your car will determine if you are a threat to high-level intelligence officials, automatically driving your vehicle into a tree if it determines you’re a danger to National Security.”

    I’m sure I’m just being paranoid. Your smart car and smart fridge are only looking after your own welfare. Help them help you!

      1. Carolinian

        Not to worry. Hackers have apparently found out how to hack car firmware to steal cars. Turning off the cell radio should be a piece of cake.

        1. Oregon Lawhobbit

          “Mommy, why is that whole car wrapped in aluminum foil?”

          “Hush, Bobby, the steering wheel will hear you!”

    2. TimH

      This is unlikely. Car industry designs products and modules years ahead of model release, and if this was really leglislated for next year, we’d have heard about it a long time ago.

      1. pjay

        You may be right about this specific legislation, but I think you may have missed the point of my own comment.

        1. TimH

          Most people will not choose a vehicle with this functionality, given a choice. And these interactive features are not invisible, unllike all the surveillance built in every new car.

    3. Darthbobber

      I think this is the annually pushed-back since 2024 mandate for cars to have some (undefined) “advanced anti-drunk driving” tech on board.

      And as I understand it 2027 is the current target for the actual planning to get underway, not the implementation.

  16. AG

    HARPERS

    Weekly Review

    In Los Angeles, California, three people were convicted of insurance fraud after one of them dressed up in a bear costume, broke into their vehicles, and blamed a bear for the damage; a woman sued the town of Surfside Beach, South Carolina, for sending her a cease-and-desist letter warning that she would be arrested if she continued recording interactions between residents and local geese; and it was reported that the band Geese is an industry plant.

    April 21, 2026

  18. Wukchumni

    Regarding the Cerros de la Plaza glacier going away…

    All of the present glaciers in the Sierra Nevada here formed during the Little Ice Age when things were cooler by about 1 degree C.

    Doesn’t take much to melt glaciers out as we’re approaching 2 degrees C warmer in the Big Heat Age.

    1. Samuel Conner

      I’m afraid he lost me in the first paragraph. He’s writing like a gold bug.

      That there is a massive resources constraint facing humanity is indisputable. Whether the resource-constrained world economy runs on commodity money or fiat money is, I am pretty confident, mostly beside the point.

  20. flora

    re: antidote du jour.

    “I just washed my hair and I can’t do a thing with it!” / :)
    – Myrtle Reed

  21. Jason Boxman

    NY Times mag

    Longevity Science Is Overhyped. But This Research Really Could Change Humanity.

    Over the past 20 years, they have learned how to trigger rejuvenation in the lab, achieving a series of breakthroughs that have made that future feel tantalizingly close. Scientists have taken skin cells from 90-year-olds and restored them to youth in a petri dish. They have rejuvenated diseased mice, turning their gray hair back to black and strengthening their muscles. They have taken failing kidneys out of rats, rejuvenated them in a lab and successfully reimplanted them; they are now moving on to pigs. In March, the first safety trials to test rejuvenation therapy on humans began with an attempt to reverse disease in the eyes and cure glaucoma.

    Rejuvenation is one of the newest and most promising developments in longevity research, a field that began in earnest in 1993 when a scientist at the University of California, San Francisco, proved that she could double the life span of a roundworm simply by tweaking a single gene. Since then, research devoted to how we age has exploded, developing alongside a booming longevity industry led by entrepreneurs and even some scientists pushing unproven products. Peptides, supplements, laser therapies, electric suits, collagen powders, cryotherapies, blood infusions and other offerings claiming to slow aging now constitute a $20 trillion global market.

    This has been a holy grail for quite awhile now.

    Fueling this industry are some of the wealthiest men in the world, who are trying to finance their way to longer life, either by biohacking their own health or pouring money into the research. Major figures in Silicon Valley, including Peter Thiel, Larry Ellison and Sam Altman, have collectively invested billions in biotech companies and research centers devoted to slowing the aging process.

    Tech bros, of course.

    The most vehement disagreements are not over whether cellular aging can be reversed, but how far scientists can push it. Will it work in humans? Will its use be limited to targeted interventions that cure specific diseases? Or could it ever be safe enough to enable full-body rejuvenation — to help humans look and feel younger, or to stop them from aging in the first place?

    Let me know when they solve the problem of gravity. What would the effects of being subject to gravity for 300 years?

    Probably less than great.

    1. Samuel Conner

      I think the work our bodies do against gravity is important for maintaining muscle strength and tone, and for preserving bone structure.

      The story is reminiscent of the premise of Joe Haldeman’s novel Buying Time. It was a depressing story. The longevity treatment was very expensive and there was, obviously, pressure to accumulate enough to pay for the treatment before one’s natural life (or the additional time one had obtained through prior treatment) ran out.

  25. chris

    Side note – kind of hilarious to see any ad pop up for the International Association of Christians and Jews asking me to “Stand up for Israel” when visiting NC. I know there’s no control over things like that. I just find it humorous.l

    1. hk

      I’ve seen those ads (and formerly, pro Ukrainian ads) pop up in podcasts/Youtubecasts that are clearly skeptical of those actors, almost insistently. I often wondered thst’s by design, if anything, to annoy us.

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