Part the First: When Science Becomes a Matter of Belief Things Go Sideways. The current Secretary of Health and Human Services is getting his way. This is not a surprise. The President hired him to “go wild on health” and he is doing just that. Some have complained that as Secretary of HHS that RFKJr […]
Read more...A theory of social systems, entropy, and power that explains the shifting world order and how the banking-state system may be adapting.
Read more...Nvidia’s narrative is being battered by mega-bears, defended by the most credulous bulls, and undermined by trade wars and a major new competitor.
Read more...In late 2025, a major RAND Corporation study on U.S.–China strategy was quietly withdrawn from public view less than two weeks after publication. The unusual disappearance suggests an internal struggle over whether the United States should escalate rivalry with China or first rebuild its own industrial and technological base. The RAND report’s realism posed a challenge to the prevailing hawkish narrative.
Read more...OpenAI may be following Meta’s malignant model by putting profits before user safety while hyping ambitious expansion plans.
Read more...Part the First: CDC Finally “Decides” that Vaccines Cause Autism. In news that will surprise absolute nobody, while pleasing some and causing despair in others, CDC says the mountains of data that show vaccines do NOT cause autism is not evidence-based: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday publicly reversed its stance that […]
Read more...In the information age, it is difficult to make sense of events. Endless amounts of information do not necessarily coalesce into a coherent narrative with explanatory meaning. The breakdown of the international order is precipitating the emergence of different narratives that engender competing truths. The German writer Goethe said: “When eras are on the decline, […]
Read more...The practitioners of Hasbara are desperately ratcheting up their control of American corporate and social media and with Oracle’s Larry Ellison suddenly tapped out, are reportedly seeking funding from the Arab Gulf states to help.
Read more...In 1982, the Falklands War rescued Margaret Thatcher from political collapse and turned her into a wartime icon. But the deeper lesson of that conflict is more dangerous: diversionary war is appealing to failing leaders, whether democratic or authoritarian. Donald Trump’s long-standing fascination with invading Venezuela, documented in his first term and now echoed by renewed U.S. deployments, a favored opposition proxy, and drug-war legal framing, fits the same dual pattern that produced the Falklands: a desperate leader seeking escape through external confrontation, and the hope of political resurrection through a short, decisive victory. The Falklands Effect turned crisis into triumph for Thatcher, but a Venezuelan conflict today could result in disaster for Trump. The danger is serious, but the power of Trump’s temptation is quietly growing.
Read more...A look at Trump’s attempts to kick 2 MAGA stalwarts out of Congress and the what the New York Times is leaving out of its Epstein coverage.
Read more...Part the First: Financial Stability and Climate Instability. Or, could a climate-related shock trigger a recession? This is a question that could be asked only by an economist, or two, as in Advancing research on financial stability and climate-related financial risk, an editorial last week in Science: Climate change–related natural disasters such as floods, fires, […]
Read more...The ideological currents behind U.S. aggression against Venezuela and Israel’s war on Palestine are the same: Yoram Hazony’s neo-nationalism
Read more...Senate Democrats threw a teetering Trump administration a lifeline by folding on the U.S. government shutdown. Let’s parse the kayfabe.
Read more...The wars in Ukraine and Gaza have exposed a new reality: the battlefield is becoming too transparent, too fast, and too automated for mass, low-skill infantry to survive. In that environment, militaries will not get rid of human fighters — they will narrow them. The future elite will be smaller, more cognitively trained, and embedded inside human–machine combat cells that can sense, decide, and act without higher headquarters. Their defining virtue won’t be brute courage but restraint: the ability to override automation, to make lawful and proportional choices when AI reaches its limits. But we should not mistake this refinement for stability. As more states adopt AI-enabled elite formations, the competition for speed, autonomy, and informational dominance may actually make escalation easier, not harder.
Read more...New York City Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani won the election, but now his real battle with entrenched power begins.
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