‘Catnomics’: how Japan’s feline fixation has become an industry worth billions The Guardian
Where Are the Economies of Scale in Homebuilding? Construction Physics
Blue Origin rocket explodes during launch pad test in Florida France24
Perfect randomness realized for the first time Phys.org
Climate/Environment
Multidecadal Atlantic “Warming Hole” Heat Content Variations Are Caused by Ocean Heat Transport, Not by Surface Fluxes GeoPhysical Research Letters
‘King of Mangoes’ faces the heat: Weather devastates Maharashtra’s Alphonso belt Business Today
Rising global hail damage potential in a warming world Nature
Outdoor lights may be making mosquito season longer Science
Discontinuity is the Job The Snap Forward
Airborne Toxic Events
Company Behind California Chemical Leak Was Building F-35 Parts Amid Rush of Orders From U.S. and Israel The Intercept
Pandemics
Long COVID Persistence and Surveillance Gaps Across 58 US Hospitals JAMA Network. “…persistently increasing cumulative prevalence through mid-2024, revealing an accumulating burden rather than a resolving syndrome.” That can’t be right; the pandemic was declared over in May of 2023.
Ebola
Kenyan high court suspends plan for US Ebola quarantine facility in Kenya Reuters
China?
The Expiration Date of Neutrality-China’s Middle East Dilemma Haokai Li
Of Root Causes and Wrong-Think About China Un-Diplomatic
China’s Industrial Transition Warwick Powell
China’s private funds see assets soar by over US$400 billion amid tech boom South China Morning Post
China’s grip on lithium to hit 39% by 2030: WoodMac Mining.com
MIT researchers develop a low-cost technique to get lithium out of rocks MIT News
Syraqistan
In first since Oslo, Israel seizing land for army base inside West Bank city +972 Magazine
Israel Is Arming ISIS Linked Gangs With Military Drones To Help Carry Out Further Ethnic Cleansing In Gaza. The Dissident
Netanyahu directs army to occupy 70 percent of Gaza The Cradle
New reporting from Reuters indicates that Israel has issued evacuation orders covering 20% of Lebanon, far beyond the “buffer zone” it previously announced to the Litani River.
More than half of the evacuation orders were *north* of Litani.
Gaza tactics in Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/R7zLp8xHhk
— Rosemary Kelanic (@RKelanic) May 28, 2026
***
Scoop: U.S. and Iran reach deal but need Trump’s final approval, officials say Axios
Iranian official to Jeremy: “We cannot regard President Trump’s decision as definitively finalized until the financial markets close at the end of this week.” https://t.co/KJfNq013NT
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) May 28, 2026
EXCLUSIVE: Israel Privately Pressing U.S. to Kill Iran’s Lead Negotiator and Launch New Strikes Capital & Empire
European Disunion
Von der Leyen gears up for fight over China trade ties Politico
China Sends EU a Direct Warning Over the Overcapacity Tool Inside China
An Open Letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz Jeffrey Sachs
Europe told to cool its datacenter boom before water and power run short The Register
Microsoft accused of leaking data of Dutch civil servants working on tech laws to US government Cyber News
Africa
New Not-So-Cold War
Live: NATO condemns ‘Russia’s recklessness’ after drone hit apartment building in Romania France24
One step away from the brink: NATO’s march towards all-out war with Russia Thomas Fazi
In Latvia’s pine forests, NATO’s drone future takes shape Euractiv
South of the Border
Trump 2.0
Trump pal funneled millions of Israeli gov’t cash into US media Responsible Statecraft
The White House Intervened to Get a $620 Million Deal for a Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr. ProPublica
Company led by Republican fundraiser pardoned by Trump wins $106m federal contract The Guardian
National Park Entrance Fees Are Funding Trump’s D.C. Projects New York Times
Treasury Secretary Bessent confirms limited steps toward a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump AP
Democrats Suck
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Pentagon Knew Enemies Could Track Troops’ Phones for Years. Now They Are Wired
Our Famously Free Press
Wow, the student journalist who won the Mike Wallace Memorial Scholarship at the News Emmys just called out CBS News.
“While I want to thank CBS News for funding this generous gift toward my education, I want to also acknowledge how the recent direction of the outlet stains the… pic.twitter.com/zjPVjDrDij
— Jeremy Barr (@jeremymbarr) May 28, 2026
AI
🚨 The AI ROI numbers are starting to look very ugly.
Even under “best case” assumptions — assuming zero costs, just revenue against capex — the Financial Times calculated the implied return on hyperscaler AI investment from 2025 to 2030.
Only one of them clears positive.… pic.twitter.com/JAlvMUL6K1
— Thierry from arvy 🇨🇭 (@ThierryBorgeat) May 28, 2026
Company accidentally spent $500 million on Claude AI in one month after forgetting usage limits Tech Startups
Toward Slop Materialism Heavy Machinery
Police State Watch
Exclusive: New Intel Bureau Eyes AI Data Center Critics Dan Boguslaw and Ken Klippenstein
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Headway Therapy Patients Forced to Scan Their Faces to Keep Getting Care 404 Media. As of 2024 Headway was operating in all 50 states and had 34,000 in-network mental health care providers affiliated with more than 40 insurance plans and was handling 600,000+ therapy appointments per month.
Economy
More workers are raiding their 401(k)s as average balances fall, Fidelity says CNBC
Exxon, Chevron execs: Oil prices just a few weeks from spiking Oil & Gas Journal
We are ~9 million bbls away from hitting a storage level that’s the equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck for gasoline and distillate.
Once we get there, even a minor disruption (any sort of outage) will result in gasoline lines at gas stations.
I guess we are really doing… pic.twitter.com/63XG5L9b73
— HFI Research (@HFI_Research) May 28, 2026
The real surprise today was the downward revision to first-quarter real GDP growth to a +1.6% annual rate from the initial estimate of +2.0%. If you recall, there was a time in the middle of the quarter when the ballyhooed Atlanta Fed Nowcast model was predicting a number well…
— David Rosenberg (@EconguyRosie) May 28, 2026
The Accelerationists
Why Peter Thiel Is Decamping to the End of the World New York Times
The Bezzle
Breaking: bad news for three of the biggest IPOs in history Gary Marcus
Antitrust
Class Warfare
More people in the U.S. are going hungry now than did during the pandemic 6 years ago NPR
OSHA has just 6 inspectors to keep 60,000 West Virginia workplaces safe. Here’s what that means for workers Mountain State Spotlight
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Treasury Secretary Bessent confirms limited steps toward a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump”
Rumour has it that Trump wants to change the official national motto of the US from ‘In God We Trust’ to instead ‘In Trump We Trust’. When asked for comment about this from Bessent-
“It’s all up to Capitol Hill,” Bessent said. “We will stick to the law.”
A $3 bill would be more appropriate.
Which would be worth a $1.39, if even that.
There were $3 bills issued during the Wildcat* era, now known as ‘broken banknotes’, along with CSA $3 bills issued by various states in the Confederacy.
* A Nation of Counterfeiters, by Stephen Mihm is a fine read on the subject.
I say the new motto should be “The beatings will continue until morale improves”
…and per Subterranean Homesick Blues …it should be an $11 bill.
A doper, money launderer or Trump bag-man will now be able to pack 2 1/2 times the cash in the same old suitcase.
“The forty dollar bill didn’t matter no more”.
US parochialism at its finest – Buenos Aires is “the end of the world”.
Thanks for the Links. Re National Parks–I’m glad I have a senior pass and won’t be personally funding the Trumpification of DC. I had always assumed the reason District NPS sites were free was so members of Congress and staff could get yet another free ride rather than due to some patriotic concession.
Hopefully there will be enough money left in the Parks fund to erase Trump’s name from all venues after he is impeached.
That article said the following-
‘The entire country benefits from the fact that there is no charge to enter any D.C. national park, but hundreds of our inner-city park sites beyond the National Mall suffer from the fact that D.C. has no representation in Congress and thus has to beg for crumbs.’
And yet they can fund a huge increase of the Capital Police and can even fund a spook bureau for Congress but there is never any money for things like parks, even in the nation’s capitol.
Time to return all of DC – except for a small federal zone with no residents – to either Virginia or Maryland, as appropriate. That way they can finally get representation and not have to worry about what they’re not getting from the fedgov.
A “small federal zone” would still have three electoral votes. That also assumes Maryland would want it.
Looking at DoI FY27 budget request, “Park Protection” request is $562 million, which includes a $112 million plus-up for the US Park Police (USPP) which is mainly DC (though also some for NYC and SF).
NPS FY27 “Green Book”
Just another way to do away with our National Parks, but to what end…
Will we see TOPS (Trump Outdoors Purveyor Services) running the whole shebang?
I think 75% of entrance fees used to go to each NP that collected them, and were an important source of funding, but that was then and this is now.
To what end? I think that the idea is that the National Parks would move out of public ownership and be leased to/sponsored by corporations for profit. They would end up becoming more theme parks than anything else with different rides and trips, each of which you would have to pay for. There would be concerts and business conferences held there too. Thus by the high costs involved in a visit to one these parks, only the elites and the wealthy would be able to visit them and not the common plebs – a form of economic exclusion. Zoos, for example, were once called the poor man’s entertainment but no longer. In short, a privatization of public lands. Too cynical?
Our National Parks are the ultimate in captured audiences-even more so than a sporting event, concert or an airport, where in such cloistered arenas a $2 beer magically transforms into a $14 beer.
I thought that that cat in today’s Antidote du jour was just another moggy. Not so-
‘Five years ago, Scotland’s beautiful “Highland Tiger” was declared functionally extinct in the wild. Today, wild-born kittens are roaming the Highlands again. 🐾
Through dedication, science, and patience, conservationists released specially bred European Wildcats back into their ancestral home and it worked. Recent trail cameras have confirmed new generations being born in the wild.
Stories like this remind us that nature can recover when people choose to protect it instead of give up on it.
In a world full of bad news, conservation success stories like the Scottish Wildcat, California Condor, and Iberian Lynx prove that extinction doesn’t always have to be the ending.
Nature is resilient. Hope matters.’
https://xcancel.com/earthcurated/status/2059643622111232323
The Wildcat in the gloaming could illustrate a fairy tale.
On first quick look I thought the cat in today’s antidote might be a lynx, which would be fitting as a an antidote for links.
This is fun. Due Dissidence. Masse files.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUrpbueRjic
(Note to Russ: why don’t the younger gen voters vote in the primaries? Boomers are now a small fraction of the total voter roles. Primaries are where the real change vote opportunity lives.
So exhorting the younger voters to vote in primaries is better than passively waiting for the older cohort to die off. Passivity is not your friend. / ;)
Hmmm, I’ll answer my own question. No one has thought to setup a ground game to get younger voters registered and to the primaries to vote. That sort of unnoticed ground game was what propelled Reagan’s primary win in 1980. The win that became known as “the Reagan revolution.” A lot of old school Republicans never saw it coming. People who had never voted in primaries before turned out and voted in numbers.
The ground game took strategy, time and effort. It worked. Closed primaries are designed reduce the number of eligible voters through a complex system of deadlines, not well publicized. (Open primaries are much better for the voter but worse for the party establishment.) The ground game included mailed postcards to registered voters advising about the registration deadlines to be able to vote in the GOP primary, mailings to promote the candidate, radio, etc.
A ground game aimed at getting younger voters who agree with candidate A could be a game changer. Candidate A would probably have to organize and fund the effort. The Party estab won’t do that.
It takes work. Passivity isn’t a plan, waiting for the old to die isn’t plan. Even after all the boomers are gone the party estab will still be there picking its preferred winner and backing the favored one with money and more money before the primary. (And, since when to either party’s estab care about what their voters want?) / ;)
Best recent example was Mamdani’s NYC mayoral primary win. That’s a ground game!
NYTimes (paywalled).
How Zoran Mamdani Stunned New York and Won the Primary for Mayor.
Mr. Mandami’s victory upended city politics and reverberated nationally. He relied on memorable message, charisma, and a strong ground game.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/nyregion/how-mamdani-won-campaign-mayor.html
There was a ground game that helped get Obama elected, but it was designed and implemented by Howard Dean, who got kicked to the curb as soon as Obama landed in the Oval Office. That was the last time I can recall the Democrats trying anything other than media campaigns to motivate voters.
thanks
On a secondary – I dared to watch two of those earth-shatteringly dumb TV discussion panels. And it is mindboggling nobody addresses the fact any more that all discussion by all participants are by now evolving merely around how to look good and how win voters sympathy in polls.
It is NEVER what would benefit voters, people, the country. Or what would b the RIGHT or the DECENT thing to do.
Neither pundits, nor journos, nor politicians find anything odd about this any more. Their entire vocabulary has changed. i.e. they do NOT UNDERSTAND it any more. It´s the new normal.
State and local party committees can raise “Levin fund” donations to support registration and get-out-the-vote. Expenditures are categorized separately. I’m not sure about candidate committees in that regard. Note that that’s for federal elections. States have their own laws for state/local elections.
I happen to be a member of a national party committee, and we have a major operation this year to turn out our voters.
“Live: Romania didn’t have time to shoot down Russian drone, defence official says”
This France24 article is typical of EU/UK media in saying that it was a Russian drone that hit that building in Romania. But I note that Romania shares a border with the Ukraine and that it would be in the Ukraine’s interest to stage false flag attacks.
Re: Headway Therapy Patients Forced to Scan Their Faces…”
In slightly better news, NYU Langone, the very large NYC area healthcare provider appears to have chucked out all their Amazon-based palm readers which were used for patient ID at check in. Now you’re greeted at the front desk by a real human who asks for identifying information.
Amazon-based palm readers? Or maybe Amazon-based fingerprint recorders.
The Reuters ebola article is paywalled.
Here’s an un-paywalled CNN article.
First para:
Nairobi, Kenya (CNN) — A Kenyan high court has temporarily frozen plans by the United States to establish an Ebola quarantine and treatment facility in Kenya – which has not recorded any Ebola cases – for Americans potentially exposed to the deadly virus in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), more than 1,500 miles away.
https://keyt.com/news/national-world/cnn-world/2026/05/29/us-ebola-quarantine-facility-in-kenya-suspended-as-opposition-to-containment-center-grows/
re: Germany vs. Russia
As expected German government claims so-called “strikes deep inside Russia” concur with Art. 51 according to a parliamentary inquiry by DIE LINKE.
BERLINER ZEITUNG
machine-translation
Berlin defends Ukrainian deep strikes: “Direct confrontation with Russia is imminent”
The German government sees no violation of international law in drone strikes deep within Russia’s interior. Left Party parliamentary group leader Sören Pellmann warns against a dangerous course of action.
https://archive.is/ybUgF
In its response, the German government refers to Ukraine’s “right to self-defense under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations.” This right is “not, in principle, limited to its own territory.” At the same time, the Foreign Office emphasizes that “the provisions of international humanitarian law” apply.
The German government further explains that it supports Ukraine “by providing or financing a wide range of armaments.” However, it “generally does not” provide information about individual weapons systems.
p.s. Due to the embarrassingly low level of news reporting German MPs have no clue that UKR is attacking civilian structures and committing war crimes on a regular basis. The fact that nuclear installations got targetted – also totally in breach of intern. law – is lost to them too by now.
What not even the the peace movement in Germany acknowledges is those 175k casualties of AFU in 2026 so far according to RU MoD. People now really seem to think no Ukrainians are dying at the front and that there is a stalemate. It´s amazing.
Of course this is posturing by the government. Playing hardball but with no cards.
Thanks for the update.
An aside: Last year, 6 AfD candidates died within 13 days in the run-up to the German elections. Quite a coincidence. Do people in Germany think it was a string of bad luck for the party?
Seeing the way things were going in local politics, is that when Merz and other EU leaders started calling for war with Russia?
Barbara Tuchman’s book about the lead-up to WWI – The Proud Tower – recounts a growing dissatisfaction and restiveness in Western Europe’s working classes about their poverty and poor working conditions at that time. There were growing numbers of radical and anarchist newspapers, calls for unionizing, and even some assassination attempts. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand set off the war.
Some of the wealthy and some of the aristocrats thought a war would be just the thing to take the fight out of the working classes. And besides, Russia was getting too strong. A war with Russia would weaken Russia and take the fight out of Europe’s working classes.
It wouldn’t be a long war, of course, and it wouldn’t cost too much, etc. It would “restore order.” That’s not how it turned out.
Afaik those AfD cases indeed were coincidence.
It wouldn´t make any sense to assassinate them.
re: war – there is an entire ocean between “calls for war” and “going to war.” Those millions of Germans who are voicing some support for anti-Russia policies however would not want Germany see destroyed. Also in the polls a majority wants the war to end as soon as possible.
What happens when Susie Wiles has a breakdown?
She’s Trump’s enabler…
“Daddy didn’t mean it”, and trying to keep everyone in the Family HAPPY! and ignoring the Elephant in the room.
Lots of stress…
What happens when she has a breakdown and Donald has to function without Good Mommy keeping the kids quiet?
When it takes one of those $250 bills to fill the gas tank…
It’s going to be a lively Summer.
“An Open Letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz”
I know that Jeffrey D. Sachs is trying to do the right thing and all but unfortunately his words are wasted on an individual like Merz. The man is an utter failure who is leading his nation down a destructive path while blaming the Germans themselves for any problems that arise. Sound familiar? Even now-
‘According to the draft Reserve Strengthening Act seen by the German outlet, all men and women who have performed less than one year of voluntary military service and are under 45 will be required to take part in military exercises either two weeks a year or every two years.’
https://www.rt.com/news/640688-germany-soldiers-mandatory-drills-law/
These are the actions of a man that wants his nation go to war and will not listen to others.
“Company accidentally spent $500 million on Claude AI in one month after forgetting usage limits”
In all fairness, corporations have been leaning heavily on employees to use AI as part of their jobs. Many have even been told that their usage of AI is what will let them keep their jobs. Now it seems that the biggest corporations in the world find that the cost of using AI exorbitant. Is there going to have to be a budget for each employee in how much AI they can use in a financial year? Rewards for those who use their allocation as efficiently as possible? Oh, brave new world…
Nobody should be surprised by yet another techbro bait and switch – lure them in with the free stuff and then charge out the wazoo when the guard is down. How would anybody know what any individual prompt is likely to cost? And yet the directives from so many companies have been to use the clankers as much as possible, no questions asked, even if it’s just for sprucing up simple emails. Zero sympathy for any companies that fell for this.
I will also have zero sympathy when the promises from the techbros that the clankers would protect any company data and not share it far and wide for fun and profit also turn out to be false.
Apparently the “C” is C-suite stands for credulous.
That has such agents in’t!
Man, just imagine how many employees you could hire for $500mill.
I am calling BS on the story.
There are so many angles where it is simply not plausible in any way.
1. scale vs results
Anthropic did just under $5 billion in the first quarter. So we are to believe that one company “accidentally” did 10% of a quarter revenue in ONE month? not plausible.
2. usage patterns
my team use claude code heavily at work. I’ve yet to see anyone hit a $500 day let alone 1000. lets be charitable and keep the maths sane. lets pretend that company is full of power users caning their claude subscription at $500 a day average. thats a million days in that month. at 20 working days a month . that’s 50,000 engineers working anthropic that hard (and it will be agents and engineers to get near that. no other usage pattern comes close). That is… simply not believable. I seriously doubt there are that many engineers globally that come come close to that usage pattern.
3. senior stakeholders
To spend at a serious level you need an enterprise agreement with Anthropic. that type of spend is not 2.5 million claude max accounts. That is an enterprise deal. and an enterprise deal comes with support, with account managers, with partner management, with forward deployed engineers to ensure you get the best out of the spend and KEEP COMING BACK FOR MORE.
a 500 million monthly surprise on an enterprise account? not believable at all.
4. token volume
token spend – call it $5 per MTok, $25 per mtok output. lets use $10 blended average (it will be less). so a million dollars is 100,000 million tokens. or 10^5 mtok. so 50,000,000 million tokens. 50 trillion tokens? what were they doing? again no volume alone it is not plausible
I bet if I did deeper into the source its from someone selling AI consulting with a cost optimization angle.
re: Scoop: U.S. and Iran reach deal but need Trump’s final approval, officials say – Axios
by Barak Ravid.
Of course it is written by Ravid. Ravid’s at it again. From Salon, May 9th.
“Over the past several weeks, Axios has repeatedly reported that a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran was either “close,” “imminent” or nearing completion. On Wednesday, a little over an hour before Axios reporter Barak Ravid published a scoop claiming the White House believed it was close to reaching a one-page memorandum of understanding with Iran to end the war, nearly 10,000 crude oil contracts — worth approximately $920 million in notional value — were sold on the futures market by traders betting the price of oil was about to fall. According to data highlighted by trading surveillance accounts like The Kobeissi Letter, whoever placed those bets stood to make an estimated $125 million as oil prices collapsed more than 12%.”
https://www.salon.com/2026/05/09/axios-accused-of-market-manipulation-with-iran-reporting/
(Is there an Unusual Whales site for Ravid? / ;)
OK, Lucy. Now you hold that football while I make my run up…
re: Merz
For whatever reason right now there is a staged public discussion about an inside-party coup to replacing Merz with the PM of the state of North-Rhine Westpahlia, Hendrik Wüst. People are aware at least of the shitty economics. Perhaps a move to force the government to do something. Of course if this were real it wouldn´t be talked about but simply happen.
In case this is not being reported outside.
German piece
use googl-trslt.
“Chancellor’s Downfall in the CDU? Merz Fights Against His Own Party”
https://www.telepolis.de/article/Kanzlersturz-in-der-CDU-Merz-kaempft-gegen-die-eigene-Partei-11310659.html
Thanks.
Hmm. The Sachs open letter to Merz may be a timely intervention, a diplomatically phrased, nominally generous appeal to rationality exposing irrationality.
It is meaningless however. If at all, it´s for public record. Sachs of course knows this.
‘WHAT DO WEAPONS GRADE PLUTONIUM, PRIVATE COMPANIES, AND THE DEAD/MISSING NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS HAVE IN COMMON?’
The third paragraph reads:
“The story itself caught my attention, but the clear attempt to bury it made me want to dig deeper. So, I did.”
The main story, that the US government is selling plutonium to private companies, was reported by the New York Times, Scientific American, Forbes, Yahoo news and CNN, and it was linked to in the NYT’s daily email newsletter. I read about it on Tuesday. So what’s this about a “clear attempt to bury it”?
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/climate/plutonium-nuclear-weapons-fuel.html
or https://archive.ph/1bmOQ
Hey, did anyone check out Aliens.GOV today?
Fascism meets idiocracy.
The whole UFO/UAP thing that they’ve been peddling on us for the last few years is 100% a psy op.
They’re trying to use aliens to subconsciously induce fear into people. You’ll notice they did the same thing before the red scare in the 1950s. All of a sudden, there were all these alien sightings around the United States. The next thing you know, there’s an enemy (Commies!) invading our country that we have to get rid of.
And what happens today? The same thing. All of a sudden the government comes out with all these UFO files that show nothing but blurry dots and what do you know we are being attacked by outsiders again.
100% fear propaganda psy op BS.
Why do you think they spread this junk to Christian pastors specifically? What do people do when they’re scared? They run to God. So they already have a collective people who are scared and now they’re sending this psyop BS directly to the most vulnerable group.
(Project Blue Beam)
I hadn’t checked it out before seeing your comment.
DECLASSIFIED
THEY WALK AMONG US
For 60 years, the U.S. government has kept a closely guarded secret.
Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives.
They’ve shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences.
With one exception — they do not belong here.
Millions arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society.
Countless presidents, congressmen, and senior officials knew exactly what was happening.
Instead of protecting American citizens, they chose to cover it up and even accelerate the invasion.
Until one man finally had the courage to tell the truth.
Bold. Unapologetic. Unafraid.
President Trump was the first to call out the real danger Aliens pose to every American family, every community, and the future of our nation.
The truth is no longer out there. It is right here. Right now.
Illegal aliens?
Sounds like a perfect description of AIPAC and the Zionists.
Reminds me of this oft repeated Bob Altemeyer quote: “Probably about 20 to 25 percent of the adult American population is so right-wing authoritarian, so scared, so self-righteous, so ill-informed, and so dogmatic that nothing you can say or do will change their minds. They would march America into a dictatorship and probably feel that things had improved as a result.”
As opposed to the left-wing authoritarians who would do the same thing?
One of the most striking contrasts in American culture is that, despite the blanket political illiteracy of non-elites, even the lowest-information voters have been exquisitely conditioned to recognize and recoil from anything potentially socialist, with some telling exceptions.*
Maybe they’re heat-loving aliens who will put us out of our misery, like in The Arrival (1996).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bmh_7P5qYSQ
*For instance, the state where I now live is unique in having a state-owned bank, as well as a state-owned grain mill. it’s also a state with no major cities, and the seventh-whitest population in the country. Socialism is OK, sometimes, as long as one can be reasonably sure it won’t benefit those people.
Goooooood Moooooorning Fiatnam!
The grunts in the platoon showed little in the way of musical aptitude with the exception of Pfc Jones who played the recorder for a couple of years in elementary school largely because he was forced to learn an instrument, so we were shocked when the invite came from the White House requesting our presence at the Semiquincentennial celebration after most all of the announced talent 86’d themselves.
Jones only knows a couple songs and is way rusty, but our country needs us in its hour of greed it was agreed-
More people in the U.S. are going hungry now than did during the pandemic 6 years ago
Remember when Biden and the Democrat Party doubled childhood poverty because The Deficit or whatever? The Pandemic emergency aid halved it, and you’d think having achieved this Great Victory for poors, the Democrat Party would under a Democrat president keep it intact.
No.
What I find interesting about the story that a former CIA officer illegally kept $40 million dollars worth of gold bars in his home is that this situation arose without anyone asking questions while the person was still a CIA employee. It tells me that CIA officers may routinely be handling “millions in foreign currency” and even gold bars as part of their job. And that their job is undoubtedly using off-the-books large sums like this to buy foreign leaders, finance subversion and terrorism, and bribe foreign officials who might interfere with American corporate exploitation. I understand the need for a major power nation to have a sizable intelligence agency, but this one really needs to be broken up and held accountable for its deeds, none of which have benefited the American people for years.
It took over 300 years for the Roman Emperor to finally break the back of the Praetorian Guard the late Empire, not finally done until Constantin the 1st in the early 3rd century.
I expect it might take a similarly long timeline, or at least one longer than our life spans, to do the same with the CIA and their ilk in America.
Stuart Parker has released a series (1, 2, 3), “Signposts on the Road to Dictatorship in Canada.” Parker has a lifetime of experience in Canadian politics, across multiple parties.
Alberta separation partition ruling:
Ideological tests for party membership:
On the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Stuart supported many of the court’s decisions (e.g. on abortion and gay marriage), but is concerned about its powers:
Investor-State Dispute Settlement:
Party leader’s power to approve or veto candidates:
Prorogation:
Party’s control of candidates:
Media censorship:
Thanks for this overview about Canada’s politics.
I don’t know him personally, but I really like what I’ve seen of Stuart. From his blog:
He says was once leader of the Green Party (federal or provincial, I’m not sure). More recently he supported the People’s Party, I believe over the issue of women’s rights, which he sees as under attack by trans radicals. He’s an environmentalist. He coined the term “petrosexuals” to refer to the truckers of the Freedom Convoy, yet supported them anyway. He is a practical advocate for indigenous people. He says his family (he’s part black if I recall correctly) were involved in the civil rights movement. To me the eclecticism of his politics shows character.
I listened to some of his analysis of woke on his Los Altos Institute podcast (the Institute is since wrapped up I believe; I should listen to the rest someday). He strikes me as an erudite and original thinker.
It was Svend Robinson who first taught me the history of the Waffle movement. Kind of the end of progressive politics in Canada, in hindsight. I swore off party politics not long after that, but not before witnessing Svend being taken down by the strategic chess moves of anti-progressive (and deeply homophobic) elements within the NDP.
I wonder how many other youths left the party at the same time, because I haven’t heard the name of a single one of them in politics since then.
Thank you for mentioning the Waffle. It shouldn’t be erased from history.
I used to vote for Svend. Are you saying the jewelry theft thing was a set up? Somehow that wouldn’t surprise me. The whole thing was so bizarre. It was SFU professor Kennedy Stewart who replaced him, wasn’t it? These days the riding is Liberal.
I volunteered for the Greens at one point. Their mortal enemies were the NDP. Tales were told of NDP skulduggery. Scrutineers were instructed to work with Liberals, never the NDP. They also instructed to only disqualify votes for other parties. Maybe I’m not modern enough, but that bothered me.
I’m not sophisticated about Canadian politics. I take minimal interest in policies or personalities. Intellectuals think that ideas change the world. When all you have is a hammer… Brian Mulroney said it plain: you dance with the one that brung ya. You say what you have to; in the end all that matters is who you dance with.
No, I was talking about his bid for leader of the party, where he handily won the first round of voting but the third-place candidate became leader. The party would be different today if he had been leader.
I don’t know about the jewelry theft, other than I can imagine his inner psyche found a quick compulsive way to force him out of politics. Pretty odd.
File under Trump Health Watch
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/us/politics/trump-physical-walter-reed.html
His health problems appear to be minor or they are being minimized by him, his doctors, and his spokespeople. Therefore, I’m going to have a little fun and engage in some wild speculation about his expected lifespan.
Many years ago I read of a calculation to determine how long a person would live. All it requires is the ages at death of that person’s parents and maternal and paternal grandparents. A total of six. Add them and strike an average. The result is supposed to give one a rough idea of his or her longevity. The calculation interested me because it made some sense. After all, it is generally agreed that genetics are the most important determinant of lifespan.
With that in mind, I dug up Trump’s family history. Ages at death of his immediate relatives:
Parents: Father, 94 years. Mother, 88.
Maternal grandparents: Grandfather, 88. Grandmother, 96.
Paternal grandparents: Grandfather, 49. Grandmother, 85.
Now, you’ll notice there is an outlier. Trump’s paternal grandfather (Frederick Trump) died at quite a young age (in 1918 of the deadly flu, not of “natural” causes). Therefore, I will arbitrarily adjust his age at death and make it a not unreasonable 80.
Here’s what we’re left with: 94+88+88+96+80+85=531. And here comes the bad news: 531/6=88. Trump is likely to be around tormenting us for another eight years.
Disclaimer: Posted for informational purposes only. NOT an inducement to wager on what year Trump will make his departure for Hell.
This says it all about Trump, Epstein and blackmail, doesn’t it?
Bondi refuses to answer lawmakers’ questions about Trump’s involvement in Epstein files release AP
A transcribed interview and not a sworn deposition like Bill and Hill? WTF.
Dell stock skyrockets 32%, heads for best day ever as AI server revenue soars (CNBC)
Meanwhile companies are finding that they can’t justify their token spend.
What a lit timeline. And NASDAQ returned 8% this month. Most of a typical annual return in a month. Totally normal.
Re: OSHA has just 6 inspectors to keep 60,000 West Virginia workplaces safe. Here’s what that means for workers
I don’t know what the ratio of OSHA inspectors to companies is where I live in the PNW, but one cannot help but wonder if OSHA inspections could have help prevent what happen at the Longview paper mill:
Confirmed death toll climbs to 8 in Longview paper mill disaster
https://www.opb.org/article/2026/05/28/longview-paper-mill-disaster-5-things-to-know/
My wife finally found some more detail on what exactly is “white liquor”:
Washington Paper Mill Tank Failure: 11 Dead and a River Contaminated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RI353jz5SZs
A pH of 14+? Dissolves bodies? That’s some nasty, nasty stuff.
Regarding the Klipperstein article on Congressional investigation and fears of AI protests. Apparently the members of Congress never read Thomas Paine.