Links 4/8/2026

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1. AG April 8, 2026 at 7:28 am

   re: Italy v. Gaza

   NGO with report on how Italy helped Israel throughout the entire time:
   
   New Report: Italian Military and Energy Transfers Fueling Genocide
   https://www.embargoforpalestine.com/italy

   German article by NACHDENKSEITEN

   use google-translate

   “Made in Italy, delivered to Israel”: Report reveals Italy’s role in Israel’s war in Gaza
   The international movement People’s Embargo for Palestine details how Italian government agencies and companies supplied weapons to Israel throughout the genocide in the Gaza Strip, despite official denials.
   By Ana Vračar
   https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=148810

   Reports on France + Greece
   https://www.embargoforpalestine.com/reports
   1. caucus99percenter April 8, 2026 at 7:58 am

      The West: we pay lip service to Nuremberg but still ship the Zyklon B.
2. Frank Lee April 8, 2026 at 7:29 am

   Still waiting to hear if Clinton, Bush or Biden will come out and condemn Trump’s “civilization ending” rhetoric.
   1. t April 8, 2026 at 9:54 am

      I have a hunch some of the posts on Reddit selling “Hilary was right about everything” are not organic.

      This would be the Hillary who, as a presidential candidate, had one actaul campaign plan that was executable and could be measured-a no fly zone over Syria.

      What I would give to be a fly on the wall in any Bush compound.
3. The Rev Kev April 8, 2026 at 7:34 am

   “Men are bad at shopping, pay more for groceries, and miss deals”

   I politely beg to differ here. Men have different styles and priorities than women shopping. The author of this article – Emily Stewart – appears to have just gone on to social media and taken this idea to heart. A women’s magazine here in Oz years ago had a section devoted to sharing stories of how foolish men are and this is more of the same. A woman will go into a store and look at value for money and any guy who has had to wait on his wife to examine two different bags of flour will know what I mean. Men are more problem-orientated to solving problems and shopping becomes one of them. So they will often head in with a checklist of things to buy and when the list is finished, out they go. Minimum expenditure of time and effort for the win. Do women get better deals? Of course. But shopping takes twice as long. So as I said, it is just two different styles of shopping you see at work.
   1. TimH April 8, 2026 at 9:30 am

      My wife would buy something that we had 10 year’s supply of already if it was for 75% off…
   2. Huey April 8, 2026 at 9:41 am

      Huh, thanks for this Rev.

      It’s funny, I dismissed the article as true, because I’d also rather have more time than look for deals. I never even questioned why juat having a different priority would be framed as something bad.
      1. t April 8, 2026 at 9:58 am

         Well, this certainly explains how so many households have the man as the primary shopper.

         I did not finish the article – does it also have true tales from store clerks? From women who never know if the confused man who finally breaks down and asks questions is really worried enough to need help, or of he just cooked up an excuse to talk to a woman?
   3. Ignacio April 8, 2026 at 9:57 am

      Quite true. In my family the shopping (for food) has been one of my tasks for years. As a consequence my wife is a horrible shopper, miss the deals and buys unnecessary things. In my experience the only thing women make better is to jump queues a groceries and fisheries. The elder ones are experts on this.
      1. t April 8, 2026 at 10:04 am

         My father is better at grocery store than my mother. Personally, I believe this is a minor rebellion on her part.

         But we always have outliers.
   4. vao April 8, 2026 at 10:17 am

      Are you suggesting that women are optimizing while men are satisficing (following Herbert Simon’s terminology)?
      1. The Rev Kev April 8, 2026 at 10:29 am

         Might be more a matter of efficiency versus effectiveness. But personally I have lost track of how many hours that I have spent following my wife through a clothing store. However psychologists have noted that men don’t work like that. That if they want a new tie, they will try on a couple but the first one they like they will take. They will not try on every tie in that store first. Just one of those things.
   5. Jonathan Holland Becnel April 8, 2026 at 1:56 pm

      I’m a terrible shopper and home keeper in general.

      I hate this part of taking care of myself and would rather have someone else do it.
   6. Wukchumni April 8, 2026 at 2:06 pm

      My whole business life revolved around shopping for aged round metal disc in search of arbitrage possibilities, and since I stopped collecting coins by the time I was 14, it filled in the void and wallet nicely.

      It was all about dickering and there was a customary 10% discount on other coin dealer’s wares, but you could pencil-whip some of them into shape with bigger discount possibilities as you got to know their individual styles.

      Its weird in that the only 2 items we are supposed to dicker on in the USA, happen to be most likely the most expensive things we’ll buy, in cars and houses.

      I do the food shopping, and miss the idea that the marked price is merely a starting point.
   7. Alphonse April 8, 2026 at 3:05 pm

      Goodness does it take twice as long when she comes along. She also buys many things that she (or rather I) will later return. I almost never do returns. I try to avoid the purchase in the first place, and I try live with it rather than take the time to take it back. (I think certain returned items are often trashed. The waste hurts my soul.)

      I’m the primary shopper. I hit my list, grab other things that are on sale or that we need, then I’m out. If I can avoid a plan to a different store with a better deal by paying a bit more right here right now, I’ll do it. I care more about price when a purchase is repeated than when it’s a one-off. I consciously ignore small differences in price and choose on quality unless products are strictly equivalent (e.g. some no-names). I will sometimes experiment with more expensive products to see whether they’re better (e.g. better rice). I figure real savings come from strategy, not tactics: e.g. shifting away from beef (beans, changing cuts, don’t make it the core of the meal), buying whole chickens and chopping them up, making my own kimchi. For key categories health matters more than price.

      The article quotes “the author of multiple books on consumer behavior and psychology,” who says men “spend longer, they get lost easier. And yes, they do tend to spend more money. There’s more impulse purchases.” It’s not clear whether this is based on any real evidence, or it’s influenced by seeing more women than men complain about their spouses online. In any case it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. In absolute terms men do not spend more: women account for the overwhelming majority (approx. 80%) of consumer spending. That being the case it seems likely that women make more unnecessary purchases overall. The really big costs are things like vehicles, travel, renovations, eating out: who spends that money?

      When a man does go shopping he may be picking up things that are not on his wife’s horizon. I say this because my situation is the opposite. I do the overwhelming majority of shopping (not just groceries). I buy more unnecessary things in general: but if you look at my wife’s behaviour when she accompanies you would think she’s the wasteful one. She picks up all sorts of things not on my agenda, from clothes to snacks. The article assumes it’s a men vs women thing. It may just be a frequent shopper vs infrequent shopper thing, but everyone loves a good war of the sexes.
   8. NotDownUnder April 8, 2026 at 11:16 pm

      The Rev Kev and others may remember there was a TV game show in the 80’s or 90’s here that pitted women as contestants and they had to guess ordinary household items in a shopping session like cheese, nuts, bread, rice, toilet paper, beef (1kg), milk, biscuits etc etc. The griff was the winner was the one who was closest to the actual average retail price. And of course the prize was money…

      I deliberately don’t watch game shows, and this one seemed one of the most pathetic…

      I think a version in the US was called The Price Is Right, but it applied mostly to high value items like cars and boats which if correctly guessed the contestants could win. And don’t quote me but I think contestants were male and female.

      Yep, very advanced and high culture there.

      What a Mess!
4. voislav April 8, 2026 at 8:12 am

   Hate to come down on Samantha Smith, but she is completely misrepresenting the message here. really to a point where I question the motives.

   The discussion is about how nature is treated as a free resource in our economy and how ecological damage like pollution, soil degradation, etc. should be part of the economic equation. So it’s not about charging for oxygen, it’s about making sure the polluters pay the true economic cost of their pollution and making sure those ecological costs are accounted for when looking at economic activity like GDP.
   1. AG April 8, 2026 at 8:58 am

      After witnessing that some major German left sociologists with chairs at universities (like Kassel and Munich) were deeply involved in manipulating the public during Covid with methods that can only be described as evil malice and characterized by supremacist tendencies (i.e. leftwing arrogance and sentiments of entitlement to rule over the uneducatd masses) I do not believe a millisecond the misrepesentation by Smith is coincidence.

      I admit that this is also much due to the circumstances (WEF) as Smith´s words could be interpreted differently in a different place. But were she so defintive in her intentions she could as well use a different verbage less open to various readings.

      This is not the Bible, this is not poetry. This is supposed to be natural sciences. Which makes it so dangerous. Because the alleged exactness covers up the complete arbitrariness contained in it all.

      Which makes WEF a fascistic event: It blends reality, objective facts with fiction to open up ways into the unthinkable. On whatever speculative level is secondary.
   2. Ken Murphy April 8, 2026 at 1:11 pm

      As a space advocate I come to this with a slightly different perspective. One of the financial and economic arguments against increased resource/energy development off-Earth is that it is too expensive for the results delivered.
      It will likely always be the case that the infrastructure developed over millennia here on Earth will make for a cheaper input compared with installing the necessary infrastructure to develop off-Earth resources/energy. Something that will 100% always be the case is that businesses (led by individual people) will try to offload expenses onto others to minimize the CoGS of product brought to market. This most assuredly includes environmental remediation costs, which is why we have to have things like the EPA to pay for it.
      From an economics perspective I’ve long argued that commodities in the marketplace are mispriced and don’t include the inevitable cleanup costs of providing those commodities. Factoring these in would likely make space-based resources appear more competitive, but how do you allocate such costs other than to the taxpayer collective?
      It’s not a simple question, and with the looters and pillagers gaming everything they can get their hands on, the economic picture gets even murkier. You can’t make good decisions with bad data, and very little of the data out there is of a quality sufficient to make the kinds of decisions we need made.
5. diptherio April 8, 2026 at 8:52 am

   Re: The WEF wants to monetize breathing

   Soon we’ll all be buying Perri-Air.
   1. Trees&Trunks April 8, 2026 at 9:27 am

      It made me think about this Yes Men prank.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEuzVMwsK7o
   2. wuzzy April 8, 2026 at 9:54 am

      This is already happening.

      https://www.walmart.com/c/kp/canned-oxygen

      This is sold to tourists in this high altitude town.

      Personally I use O2 at night for sleep apnea 2L/minute. That would be $720/night.
      1. Wukchumni April 8, 2026 at 1:22 pm

         You see those oxygen canisters for sale @ ski resorts and in ski towns…

         For what it’s worth dept:

         USA was playing the Czechoslovakian hockey team in 1960 for the gold medal in the Winter Olympics at high altitude in Squaw Valley, and who came in the locker room between periods and advised the US team to use supplemental oxygen, but USSR player Nikolay Sologubov, and with its help the USA beat the Czechs.

         Wouldn’t have looked good to have the Czechs win the gold medal, must’ve have been the Soviets thinking.
   3. Kurtismayfield April 8, 2026 at 1:46 pm

      Quantifying the worth of natural resources is problematic, but if its used to actually make businesses pay for the resources they use, I an all for it.
   4. lyman alpha blob April 8, 2026 at 6:18 pm

      The header quote is extremely misleading. No WEF fan, but the woman is talking about corporations assuming that the natural world is theirs for the taking, and how that should not continue. Externalities need to be accounted for, etc. Pretty good idea actually. Maybe the twixter commenting on the video is a corporate lobbyist.
      1. AG April 9, 2026 at 12:27 am

         that or simply superficial misunderstanding by the poster
         i have just become so doubtful of elites that i like to accepting more radical interpretations that would extend beyond the actual evidence presented
         that can quickly turn meaning into opposite of what is intended
6. Pat April 8, 2026 at 8:52 am

   I have many things to thank you for, Yves. And even if the last few…hell years… have been an assault on my sanity this site has been a beacon of reality, logic and common sense.
   But today’s antidotes are deserving of special recognition. Bojan in Slovenia made me smile before I even saw the links, the relief brought to Baarack was calming, and despite the questionable logic I related to the need to poke the “800 pound gorilla.
   Thank you!
7. The Rev Kev April 8, 2026 at 9:01 am

   “‘It beggars belief’: UK military reveal locations inside sensitive bases through exercise app’

   Something like this happened several years ago when US service personnel were using these apps with their training. It showed these people and also their location which led to at least one secret US base being highlighted by this app.
   1. vao April 8, 2026 at 10:13 am

      It just happened with the French navy, too.

      It is amazing how “convenience” and “coolness” blinds people to the consequences of using those apps, services, and electronic devices. So many scandals with Internet-enabled household devices (from robotic vacuum cleaners to TV sets, who all end up spying on users), Internet information services (e.g. DNA/genealogy, whose data generously provided by users end up in the hands of law enforcement and other parties), all kinds of electronic gizmos (e.g. security cameras that are not secure), and these apps (which end up tracking everything users do — which as a matter of fact is what they are supposed to do!)
8. flora April 8, 2026 at 9:08 am

   re: Hakkeem Jeffries statement.

   Sorry, Hakkeem. You went out of your way to make sure the House did not vote on a War Powers Resolution Act vote before the shooting started. You did it for political reasons

   You don’t get a do-over now to save face.

   From Asia Times, February 26th.

   Top Dems reportedly work to sabotage bill to stop Trump Iran war

   https://asiatimes.com/2026/02/top-dems-reportedly-work-to-sabotage-bill-to-stop-trump-iran-war/

   From Common Dreams, March 25th.

   Critics Slam Meeks, Jeffries Pushing Off War Powers Bill Just as It Gets Enough Votes to Pass

   https://www.commondreams.org/news/meeks-jeffries-back-off-war-powers
   1. The Rev Kev April 8, 2026 at 9:47 am

      (waves hand) Hakkeem Jeffries is not the reformist Democrat that you are looking for.
      1. Pat April 8, 2026 at 10:58 am

         We here in NY produce some of the biggest posers in politics. It is a honor many of us deplore.
         Sadly, Hakeem will probably succeed in erasing his perfidy from public recognition. It has taken over a decade for Chuckie Schumer’s two faced government record to be acknowledged by more than a well informed minority. Going a little outside NY’s borders Hakeem’s predecessor and mentor, POS leader Nancy Pelosi’s mask lasted decades.
9. Vicky Cookies April 8, 2026 at 9:28 am

   Re: Will AI Kill off Populism? Wishful thinking from UnHerd, and politically as well as technologically illiterate. The article correctly diagnoses AI as a technocratic medium, as opposed to social media, which it deems populist. But the author is in a class bubble, unable to see that hegemonic common sense is neither common nor sensible. He seems to buy every selling-point for AI, and sees it as a way to control the masses and de-radicalize MAGA. He does not remark on AI tendencies towards hallucination, the cases of AI-induced psychosis, environmental impacts of data centers, or the issues of material, ecological, and financial sustainability involved. He also claims that LLMs do not condescend (did he ask one if his article was good?). Informative as to the class perspective of AI hype.

   Unrelated, I wanted to share with the class a Phil Ochs song pertinent to our perception-is-reality time: The War is Over. Hopefully this isn’t wishful thinking as well.
   1. Judith April 8, 2026 at 11:08 am

      The author of that ridiculous article, Richard Hanania, has an curious history:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hanania

      And thanks for the Phil Ochs
   2. Alphonse April 8, 2026 at 4:09 pm

      The Hanania article is like a perfect crystal of wrongness.

      Individuals rarely wake up and declare, “I want to be brainwashed.”

      O RLY?

      Williams points out that LLMs will listen to all your concerns and don’t condescend to you.

      No indeed, they lavishly praise your uniquely perceptive genius. They are literally brainwashing machines that drive people psychotic by telling them what they want to hear.

      a powerful tool for helping people . . . who do not misunderstand just one or two events, but whose entire picture of reality is warped

      I feel commentary is superfluous. After all, Hanania says, an AI that suffers from too much bias simply won’t be credible. How much bias is too much? Black Nazis. Presumably short of that we can trust it.

      Thankfully AI offers a way to dissolve the public and choose a new one. With silicon sampling you can tell people you know what they want without even asking them:

      Because large language models can generate responses that emulate human answers, polling companies see an opportunity to use A.I. agents to simulate survey responses at a small fraction of the cost and time required for traditional polling.

      Don’t you just love that word, “opportunity”? I can hear the ka-ching right now. Where’s my stockbroker?

      Malcolm Kyeyune once argued that the purpose of the Okhrana and Imperial Russian censorship was to deceive the elites, not the people. It does not matter whether the majority see that the regime is the fraud: what’s important is that the elites believe in it and themselves so that they will continue to serve it. Censorship may prolong the regime, but it intensifies tensions until a preference cascade triggers sudden collapse.

      When people wake up and decide they want to be brainwashed, this is the kind of article they write.
10. flora April 8, 2026 at 9:54 am

    re: IMF Warns Tokenized Finance Risks Amplifying Market Crises Ahead – Bloomberg

    Ya think? / ;)
11. The Rev Kev April 8, 2026 at 10:16 am

    ‘David Atherton
    @DaveAtherton20
    You may have seen my video this morning about Baarack the Merino sheep who spent over 5 years in the wild. He was found near Lancefield in Victoria, Australia. This includes what happened next. They trimmed off 78 lbs of wool and Baarack was returned to a flock.’

    How the hell did it ever manage to survive 5 years in the wild? Having to carry 78 lbs (35 kgs) around all day must have been an effort, especially when he was standing. When they finally sheared him, I thought that his legs would resemble those of Arnold Schwarzenegger but apparently not.
12. Bugs April 8, 2026 at 10:37 am

    Bojan, you have a very cute puppy! Dober pes!
13. AG April 8, 2026 at 10:55 am

    r: USA fascism 1952

    reprinted in MONTHLY REVIEW April 2025
    
    MONTHLY REVIEW Oct. 1952
    The Danger of Fascism in the United States: A View from the 1950s
    by Paul A. Baran
    https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-danger-of-fascism-in-the-united-states/

    Paul A. Baran (1909–1964), professor of economics at Stanford University, was the author of The Political Economy of Growth (1957) and (with Paul M. Sweezy) Monopoly Capital (1966)—both published by Monthly Review Press.

    This reprise is excerpted from an article, “Fascism in America,” that Baran published under the pseudonym Historicus in Monthly Review vol. 4, no. 6 (October 1952)
14. The Rev Kev April 8, 2026 at 10:57 am

    “Seizure of 2,000 ants at Nairobi airport highlights the hidden scale of insect trafficking”

    They were smuggling them in from Africa for garden ants? Seriously? I can see it now. A smuggling ring smuggle in ants from South America – not realizing that they are actually Marabunta ants. Hilarity ensues.
    1. AG April 8, 2026 at 11:20 am

       Dismembering the plane while it´s still airborne…pure WB Looney Tunes
    2. ambrit April 8, 2026 at 11:48 am

       Africanized Killer Ants? Who’d a thunk it?
       Welcome to the Naked Jungle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH2U-cM6MPY
       1. Wukchumni April 8, 2026 at 11:51 am

          …its all relatives
15. Mr. Woo April 8, 2026 at 11:26 am

    The fancy bear debunking is something I’ve heard of before but never been able to find. Anybody know a source?
    1. AG April 8, 2026 at 12:54 pm

       Undead´s Substack/SleuthNews, the most comprehensive source on Russiagate is mostly behind paywall I believe.
       (I haven´t checked the site since Patel and Gabbard left the air out of Russiagate for most part.)
       But you can type in any Bears you want and get hits.
       https://www.sleuth.news/

       Also Craig Murray e.g. in 2016

       “(…)
       I am about twenty four hours behind on debunking the “evidence” of Russian hacking of the DNC because I have only just stopped laughing. I was sent last night the “crowdstrike” report, paid for by the Democratic National Committee, which is supposed to convince us. The New York Times today made this “evidence” its front page story.

       It appears from this document that, despite himself being a former extremely competent KGB chief, Vladimir Putin has put Inspector Clouseau in charge of Russian security and left him to get on with it. The Russian Bear has been the symbol of the country since the 16th century. So we have to believe that the Russian security services set up top secret hacking groups identifying themselves as “Cozy Bear” and “Fancy Bear”. Whereas no doubt the NSA fronts its hacking operations by a group brilliantly disguised as “The Flaming Bald Eagles”, GCHQ doubtless hides behind “Three Lions on a Keyboard” and the French use “Marianne Snoops”.
       (…)”
       The Russian Bear Uses a Keyboard
       https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/12/russian-bear-uses-keyboard/

       You would also find it with Aaron Maté and Matt Taibbi.
       1. Mr. Woo April 8, 2026 at 2:10 pm

          Thanks, my dude
16. Kontrary Kansan April 8, 2026 at 11:29 am

    US-Israeli Strikes Destroy Jewish Synagogue in Iran

    Why not just “synagogue?” Is there more than one kind?
17. AG April 8, 2026 at 12:09 pm

    re: capitalism

    MONTHLY REVIEW

    Vijay Prashad v. JACOBIN

    Could Capitalism Have Thrived Without Colonialism? A Commentary on Vivek Chibber’s Jacobin Radio Interview

    by Vijay Prashad
    March 2026
    https://monthlyreview.org/articles/could-capitalism-have-thrived-without-colonialism/

    
    “In mid-December 2025, an interview with New York University sociologist Vivek Chibber was conducted by Democratic Socialists of America’s Melissa Naschek for the Confronting Capitalism podcast and then was published as a lightly edited transcript in Jacobin. I listened to the podcast and then read and re-read the transcript several times. Each time I read the transcript, I was surprised to see that Chibber, who is a professor of sociology and the editor of Catalyst journal, had decided to make such strong claims about the origins of capitalism and the minor role of colonialism in its origin as a podcast, and not as a major written text with citations.”

    Said JACOBIN interview

    Colonial Plunder Didn’t Create Capitalism

    Interview with Vivek Chibber
    
    Despite what you may have heard, colonial plunder didn’t give rise to capitalism. In an interview with Jacobin, Vivek Chibber discusses why the “colonialism-created-capitalism” argument fails, and why Marxism provides a better account of its emergence.
    https://jacobin.com/2025/12/colonialism-transition-feudalism-capitalism-history-economy
18. Jason Boxman April 8, 2026 at 2:37 pm

    The hot war is to resume soon I suppose

    Leavitt said Lebanon is not part of the cease-fire agreement. Israel has also said the truce did not extend to Lebanon, but the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps threatened a military response against “aggressors in the region” if there was not an immediate halt to attacks in Lebanon, where Israel has targeted the Iran-backed Hezbollah armed group.

    (bold mine)

    and

    Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said in a post on X today that the terms of the Iran-U.S. cease-fire were “clear and explicit.” He highlighted parts of a post by the prime minister of Pakistan, which mediated the truce, that said Lebanon was included in the deal. Araghchi added that Washington must choose between a cease-fire or continued war via Israel, and “it cannot have both.”

    (bold mine)

    I can’t see Trump abandoning Israel, and Israel is gonna keep shooting, so here we are. Where we were before the ceasefire.
19. JohnnySacks April 8, 2026 at 2:40 pm

    From firsthand experience, mileage will certainly vary with regards to that Farming 101 article. No question, there are a LOT of rewards to be had from growing food, both for the soul, the flavor, and the budget. But without being prepared for varying levels of soul crushing disappointment, the effort will fill the unsuspecting with despair.

    Not everything will succeed for many reasons, soil, sunlight, climate, disease, insects. It’ll take a couple years to identify robust producers.

    Netting requirement for blueberries and raspberries is not an optional suggestion – they will be mercilessly devoured. Fine if your goal is feeding wildlife and getting a handful or two for yourself.

    Some appealing fruit trees will be plagued with disease and rot, especially if a few days of damp weather hit at the right time (2 years – mountains of ripening nectarines covered in fungus, apricot tree trunks attacked by fungus – gave up and repurposed the trunks for my BBQ smoker)

    Stanley plum trees plagued with black knot fungus – more BBQ smoker wood, better luck with Shiro Japanese.

    Kiwis (gooseberries) still only producing a dozen fruits after 5 years.

    All fruit trees, apples, pears, peaches, plums get ripped bare by tree rat squirrels in a matter of days. I’m wanting to use a solar powered electric fence charger and netting, but not cheap. Town has threatened arrest me for trapping and euthanizing them en masse.

    But the tomatoes, eggplants, kale, greens, and whatever we manage to salvage from fruit trees, nothing like it from any supermarket.
    1. Hepativore April 8, 2026 at 4:28 pm

       In some cases, some form of pesticide are a must, as I cannot grow melons or squash where I live without using something as cucumber beetles in my area are voracious and numerous and they will literally kill anything in the melon or squash family from the wilt long before I can get fruit.

       I mean, yes, I try and avoid some of the nastier compounds and chemicals, but the judicious use of some pesticides is sometimes warranted when the alternative is nothing because of insects completely destroying the plants.

       While one should keep in mind the environmental impact of pesticides that are being used, there is also the fact that we should all be mindful that nature is not always nice.
    2. juno mas April 8, 2026 at 5:09 pm

       Yes, there is much to be learned from growing food in your garden. Pest and pestilence being but one. It takes lots of time and effort. Having a desk job is much easier. That’s why community gardens are such a valuable resource. You can volunteer to match your enthusiasm and food needs, while getting hands-on experience.

       There is much to know about fruit tree varieties and there viability to your grow climate. Knowing how to limit the number of fruiting buds on a branch to match the potential of the tree is learned through experience.

       Farming is a practical science.
20. Wukchumni April 8, 2026 at 2:49 pm

    The lunatic is on the White House grass
    The lunatic is on the White House grass
    Remembering con games and crypto chains and laughs
    Got to keep the loonies on the war path

    The lunatic is in the White House hall
    The lunatics are in the White House hall
    They stand there folded faces to the floor
    And every departure brings a few more

    And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
    And if there is no room upon the hill
    And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
    I’ll see Artemis II on the darkside of the moon

    The lunatic is in my head
    The lunatic is in my head
    You raise the stakes, you make the change
    You re-arrange me till I’m insane

    You lock the door
    And throw away the key
    There’s someone in my head but it’s not me

    And if Bibi bursts thunder in your ear
    You shout and no one seems to hear
    And if the brand you’re in starts playing different tunes
    I’ll see Artemis II on the dark side of the moon

    Brain Damage, by Pink Floyd

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB_3w0AZYTA&list=RDYB_3w0AZYTA
21. vao April 8, 2026 at 5:09 pm

    That BBC article on ‘It was too much to handle’: What happens when remote travel goes wrong left me estranged about the problems those presumably well-off tourists have with nature. I even wonder whether the article is not a spoof, since it includes a pearl such as:

    “Then there was the guest staying in a tented camp in a Kenyan game reserve who complained about a hippo brushing up against their tent. For me, these things would have been exhilarating, but for these guests, it was too much to handle.”

    The hippopotamus is a truly dangerous, aggressive animal and one definitely does not want to have that kind of beast brushing up against the tent.
22. AG April 8, 2026 at 5:36 pm

    re: China, Uyghurs & “genocide”

    MONTHLY REVIEW

    Major piece by Vijay Prashad and Tings Chak

    The Idea of the ‘Uyghur Genocide’ and the Realities of Xinjiang
    https://monthlyreview.org/articles/the-idea-of-the-uyghur-genocide-and-the-realities-of-xinjiang/
23. AG April 8, 2026 at 6:16 pm

    re: Oliver Stone on “JFK”, Arnon Milchan, Israel

    I post his entire fb piece here:

    “(…)
    In response to those who keep attacking “JFK” for not dealing with the Israeli relationship to President Kennedy, I’ve posted these responses I made a year ago in May of 2025. I repeat them here.
    
    1) Milchan had no creative input at all. Warner Brothers put him into the project, because they were worried about the financial risk at $40 million. I hardly knew the man at that time, and I don’t remember him ever visiting the set. He was considered to be in the artistic doghouse because of his behavior with Leone and Scorsese projects. The first I heard of this nuclear bomb story was after the film was sent into the world. The Dimona story surfaced for me later in time. It’s become a theory for the assassination, but I have little belief in it. My researcher, Jim DiEugenio, has spent time with this and can throw more light on why he doubts it. JFK had plenty of vicious enemies on the home front. And the truth is Israel became a much bigger problem for the U.S. since Netanyahu took power during the War on Terror.

    2) In short, Milchan only put up money and was passive, and Warners never told me what to do on anything! Over the next two films I made with Milchan, I got to know him better, but we never once discussed his background, as most of the time, I was struggling with him to fulfill his contract with me. On the money front, he was a nightmare, and I think if you talk to enough filmmakers who worked with him at that stage of his career, they will agree. We broke apart in ugly recriminations over my film, “Nixon.” [Milchan never formally took part in producing “Nixon,” and that’s a story for a longer biography.]

    Nothing has changed. I have no motive to protect Israel, which I consider an aggressor country. I wholly condemn Netanyahu and President Trump for their uncivilized attacks on a great country and culture, as well as their butchery of language in demeaning long-held opposition to their ideas.

    Remember that it was the U.S. that undermined the concept of democracy for the Iranians in 1953 when they financed the coup against duly elected Prime Minister Mosaddegh. Nor have they let up since, supporting the corrupt Shah and destroying any moderate opposition.

    Trump is making a huge mistake. Centuries ago, Marcus Crassus, one of the richest Romans of his time and one of the Triumvirate that ruled the Republic alongside Julius Caesar and Gnaeus Pompey, led seven Roman legions into Parthia (Iran, Iraq, parts of Turkey) and, at the battle of Carrhae in 53 B.C., lost almost 40,000 men – as well as his head. Trump, who considers himself a great businessman and now warrior, may soon learn the same lesson from history.
    (…)”
    1. Martin Oline April 8, 2026 at 10:19 pm

       Thanks for adding this content AG as I wouldn’t have read it otherwise. Stone is probably right about a lack of Israeli involvement in the JFK killing but the truth will never be known. If they had been asked I’m sure they would have helped. I recently read the 2013 revised edition of Crossfire by Jim Marrs. It was originally printed in 1989 and, along with the Garrison investigation, served as the primary sources for the Oliver Stone movie JFK. This second book is much longer than the first. Marrs theorizes where the United States would be today if there had been a full eight years of a Kennedy administration. He says there would have been no large involvement in Vietnam, little or no mafia control over big businesses, no Zionist control of congress (the Liberty attack may have had consequences for Israel), a likely end to the Cold War, and no bloated military. A different world. Marrs has only one sentence about Israeli involvement without a source cited: “There was also the argument that Kennedy was opposed to Israel’s development of nuclear weapons and was demanding inspections of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant, a position that alienated powerful Zionists.” That is the only thing I’ve found about Zionist involvement, which seems to be a fairly recent thing.

       Much has been made of Jack Ruby’s Jewish origin. In a statement after his killing of Oswald he said “I wanted to show them a Jew had guts.” From The Man Who Knew Too Much by Dick Russell:

       It seems the right wing was ready to also smear both Jews and communists for the assassination before it took place. An FBI informant, Willie Somerset, reported on his contacts with Joseph Milteer, who was very active in right wing groups in the south in 1963. The day after the assassination Milteer told Somerset “there would be a propaganda campaign to prove to the Christian people of the world that the Jews, the Zionist Jews, had murdered Kennedy.”

       That is the only other instance I have read in the books of the assassination and it rings true in regards to the tenants of the John Burch Society and the Minutemen from the ‘60’s. If seeds were planted at that time they could easily be uncovered today. That is the entire reason I look askance at recent allegations of Zionist involvement with his assassination. It is commonly believed that the CIA, Cuban refugees, Texas oil interests, and the Mafia were all involved. The Kennedy administration fired Dulles and others from the CIA, he refused to enlarge the Bay of Pigs operation, and in the year 1963, 288 organized crime members were convicted. Previous to the 1960’s only 35 people had been convicted. All four groups had motivation to remove John Kennedy but only the CIA did not voice this openly.
24. flora April 8, 2026 at 9:47 pm

    re: wooley booley.

    Sheep May Safely Graze. – J.S. Bach

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIUCRXMM4pE&list=RDZIUCRXMM4pE&start_radio=1
25. hk April 9, 2026 at 3:45 am

    I’m getting pretty impressed by this PolicyTensor person. His assessment of the lessons from the present conflict.

    https://xcancel.com/policytensor/status/2041994617860902951#m

    OTOH, he seems pretty confident that the ceasefire will hold. That I’m not so sure. One historical analogy that he draws in response to another Xwit–which I largely agree with–does not give me much confidence: Israel as Serbia in 1914 and United States as Russia at the same time. (Does that make Afghanistan 21st century Japan and Trump…well, he sure isn’t Stolypin–I suppose analogies don’t have to be perfect.)

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