Turkish chef recreates 8,600-year-old Neolithic bread Anadolu Agenvy
On Moss, Rock, Lichen, and Survival Buttondown
California Burning
LA wildfires mapped: Palisades and Eaton blazes now cover nearly 30,000 acres Independent. Commentary:
So from the production side, the disparity is all class-influenced. But from the consumer side, a mix of peasant celebrity/rich-worship, but also schadenfreude gawking from the vast nobodies, in which the Santa Ana winds are a celestial Luigi.
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) January 9, 2025
What ignited the deadly California wildfires? Investigators consider an array of possibilities AP
Oligarch farmers and the fires in Los Angeles Yasha Levine, Weaponized Immigrant
Power Failure: On Landscape and Abandonment Switchyard
Climate
‘We have been heard’: Montana youth score a major climate victory in court Grist
Earth records hottest ever year in 2024 and crosses key 1.5C threshold Al Jazeera
The Horror of Witnessing a Massive Oil Spill Up Close and Personal Narrative
The Subseafloor Crustal Biosphere: Ocean’s Hidden Biogeochemical Reactor Astrobiology
Syndemics
First H5 Bird Flu Death Reported in United States (press release) CDC
Coronavirus epidemic broke out in East Asia around 25,000 years ago, gene study shows ABC Australia. Original Biology
Unravelling viral ecology and evolution over 20 years in a freshwater lake Nature
Receptor-binding proteins from animal viruses are broadly compatible with human cell entry factors Nature
The Arctic Plague Ship Part 2 Nate Bear, ¡Do Not Panic! Part 1.
China?
China: Shanghai Bans Live Poultry Sales A Flu Diary
China plans to build ‘Three Gorges dam in space’ to harness solar power South China Morning Post. Commentary:
Reading so many ignorant takes on this microwave energy-beaming technology…
First, this isn't new tech – NASA and the US Department of Energy have actually been studying it since the 1970s. In fact, they demonstrated successful power transmission from space in 1975!
The…
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) January 10, 2025
China hit record trade barriers in 2024 as overcapacity fears spread to developing world South China Morning Post
The Koreas
Two weeks in, South Korea’s latest leader Choi walks political tightrope Straits Times
Syraqistan
“The lobby is working overtime” w/ John Mearsheimer (video) Makdisi Street, YouTube (Alice X). Well worth a listen, even given the length. Mearsheimer reflects on his long career as a realist. Commentary:
“I tweeted Free Palestine. Less than 10 minutes later, I got a call from the NBA commissioner, agents, people in my foundation, and even folks from Texas, telling me to take it down”
NBA star Dwight Howard. pic.twitter.com/Q1uyH98mGm
— Leyla Hamed (@leylahamed) January 7, 2025
Israeli settlers in West Bank see Trump win as chance to go further BBC
Who is Joseph Aoun, the new president of Lebanon? Al Jazeera
European Disunion
Moldova torn between European aspirations and nostalgia for Soviet era France24
Scholz blocks new German assistance package to Ukraine worth billions of euros – Spiegel Ukrainska Pravda
Elon Musk hosts leader of Germany’s far-right AfD on X ahead of election Al Jazeera. Commentary:
Elon Musk and Alice Weidel (of the far-right German AfD party) put their brains together for a discussion:
Weidel: “The National Socialists (Nazis) were socialist. Adolf Hitler was a socialist.”
Musk: “Yeah, they nationalized industries like crazy.”
Weidel: “He was a… pic.twitter.com/TmDzHqTidM
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) January 9, 2025
Dear Old Blighty
Corbyn pushes government on RAF base’s role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza The Canary
New Not-So-Cold War
Fiber optic drones revolutionize combat in Russia-Ukraine war Anadolu Agency
Competing Visions of Restraint for U.S. Foreign Policy RAND
Branko Milanović – “To the Finland Station” Brave New Europe
The New Great Game
U.S. Congress introduces ‘Georgian Nightmare Non-Recognition Act’ JAMA News
Trump Transition
The mysterious ways of Donald J. Trump Gilbert Doctorow
* * * Trump tariffs will probably be 20% on most Chinese imports, not 60%: Goldman Sachs South China Morning Post
What Tariffs Can and Can’t Do Project Syndicate
* * * Why Is Trump So Obsessed With Greenland? Foreign Policy
* * * Supreme Court allows Trump to be tainted as a felon. But there’s a catch Andrew McCarthy, FOX
Navigating the Nonsense and Propaganda of Clownish Authoritarianism Democracy Americana
O Canada
What Trudeau learned from watching ‘The West Wing’ MacLeans. For those who came in late, see here.
BREAKING: Sources have confirmed that Juan Guaidó has declared himself Interim Prime Minister of Canada. 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/vkToo8Kd9C
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) January 7, 2025
Biden Administration
Biden to Further Limit Nvidia AI Chip Exports in Final Push Bloomberg
Judge scraps Biden’s Title IX rules, reversing expansion of protections for LGBTQ+ students AP
Police State Watch
Researcher Turns Insecure License Plate Cameras Into Open Source Surveillance Tool 404 Media
Our Famously Free Press
Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors Forward
Digital Watch
Don’t Count Out Human Writers in the Age of AI Wired. The deck: “The appetite for AI-derived drivel isn’t as strong as many publishers would have you believe, and demand for quality content is growing.”
Apple Intelligence News Notification Summaries Michael Tsai
* * * Leaked Meta Rules: Users Are Free to Post “Mexican Immigrants Are Trash!” or “Trans People Are Immoral” The Intercept
A Day in the Life of a Prolific Voice Phishing Crew Krebs on Security
Sports Desk
Steph Curry and the NBA’s most confounding paradox EPSN
Glory to gloom: The fall of India’s Test cricket supremacy BBC
Imperial Collapse Watch
Yes, US generals should be fired Responsible Statecraft
Ships Must Practice Celestial Navigation U.S. Naval Institute
Class Warfare
Wall Street Job Losses May Top 200,000 as AI Replaces Roles Bloomberg
Saying ‘No’: On Power And Reality 3 Quarks Daily
Winning coalitions aren’t always governing coalitions Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic
Antidote du jour (Charles J. Sharp):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors”
Once again the defence of the indefensible Israel is leading to even heavier censorship on the internet. Those Wikipedia editors should get in contact with 4chan and like minded groups and tell them that the Heritage Foundation reckons that they are basement-dwelling wusses whose only skills come from the book “Hacking For Dummies.”
Doxxing under the banner of our “ironclad” relationship with Israel, coming to a theater near you! Gotta protect the good reputation of project Gaza.
iron-clad = clapped in irons
>On Moss, Rock, Lichen, and Survival Buttondown
The things that cultivate the wasteland, and make it soft and green for those who need it; that bloom like rust on rock, that, from air and light and meager rain and ice, make life. Expecting little, noticed less, but irrepressible
Thanks for this link. Like the author I marvel at moss and lichen. When I first purchased my home in Central PA ,I was tempted to manicure my lawn so that it looked like my neighbor’s, like a golf course. Instead I’ve let the moss grow where it wants, making itself co-habit with the grass and letting the dandelions and wild flowers run wild in the spring, mowing only when necessary. The colors and texture of lichen on trees and stones always attracts me, along with mushrooms, these are among nature’s wonders.
Recently I’ve been researching some ancient Indian ceremonial stones on my land and many of them are covered with beautiful mosses and lichens, so I also did a little research on moss as well and learned that some mosses can live for hundreds of years.
I have noted before the execrable Norway maples that make gardening difficult around my house. You really don’t want to try to grow anything else within a football field or so of those trees due to their rapid growth which throws shade on everything else and their massive root systems which take most of water and nutrients from the surrounding ground.
The one side benefit I’ve found after dealing with them for almost 20 years now is moss and lichen. As the trees get bigger and cast more shade, the grass beneath them is slowly replaced by a lovely bed of moss. And where the branches overhang the garage, the shade has created a nice environment for both moss and lichen to grow on the roof. The part underneath the branches is now covered and looks like a hobbit house. The moss balls up and every so often I’ll find a little mossy sphere on the ground – took me a while to figure out they were coming from the garage roof. I really enjoy sitting in the back yard now – it’s like a little piece of the Shire in the middle of suburbia.
Chk out the movie “Here” on Kanopy–maybe elsewhere. City-dwelling Romanian construction worker fancies a Belgian-Chinese moss-studying doctoral student:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26448954/?ref_=ext_shr
>LA wildfires mapped: Palisades and Eaton blazes now cover nearly 30,000 acres Independent. Commentary:
Peter Duke is an interesting/informative podcaster who lives in the Palisades, I’ve been following his work for several years. Yesterday he posted the YTube clip below which provides many interesting facts, such as there was a fire that broke out in the area on Jan 1st that was successfully extinguished and should have given authorities the opportunity to review their procedures/capcitiy/readiness.
About halfway through podcast Peter, since he has press credentials, was allowed through to go back to his home. The video, about half-way through, 30 minute mark, shows their reaction as they arrive to their home only to find it burnt to the ground, very emotional and stirring first-hand account.
https://www.youtube.com/live/dfyZRQk6NpU?si=1w6emUlVUWbXU8Vehttps://www.youtube.com/live/dfyZRQk6NpU?si=1w6emUlVUWbXU8Ve
I think that this is the new normal – $150B in destruction, 10,000 homes destroyed, and who knows if the insurers will pay or if they’ll find a loophole in the policy language. These events are now part of regular life, sadly. Helene seems already forgotten.
Because of climate change we’re facing huge bills, Congress will just write a huge check which will of course make the debt-berg even bigger, and interest rates rise, hurting the overall economy.
It’s almost as if there is a de facto climate tax for doing nothing, keeping on keeping on, etc. … The hidden hand of the market?
A rundown of some of the celebs who have been burned out
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14264179/A-listers-left-California-wildfires-Destroyed-homes-Adam-Brody-Anna-Faris-James-Woods.html
During Helene the wind was probably the most destructive force where I live. We have become used to flooding in low lying areas. Typically the trees that came down were adjacent to some open space like a large road or a lake. Elsewhere our many trees tended to act as a wind break if you were fortunate enough not to have one fall on your house.
Will the fed govt order up more runway foam to make all those wealthy H’wood celebs whole? Appaently Biden has made noises that they will but in two weeks H’wood’s bete noire will be in charge.
Derivatives. Matchsticks built on the houses of cards.
Thanks for the link. The whole 1 hour show is worth watching.
I don’t think that these wildfires can be linked to climate change. If you talked to a Native American Californian before the arrival of Columbus he or she would have said something like this:
Look, we’ve lived here for thousands of years. We know what burns and what doesn’t burn. If you try to build something permanent in these locations, eventually it will burn down. If there is a fire during one of these wind events, this whole zone is going to burn down. These canyons will turn into blow torches if there is a fire during a wind event. No amount of human effort will stop the fire once it starts. You can build something, but don’t expect it to last more than a couple of decades.
Current events in California continue to track Octavia Butler’s prophetic Parable series. The only thing missing are drug-crazed mobs actually setting the fires.
curreny
Last night I was seeing videos of stern authorities addressing looting and curfews in an attempt to keep the have-nots from scavenging the remains of the fires. Gotta limit the anarchy to Berkley I guess.
It’s an easy choice to appropriately relocate the pending NFL playoff game on Monday , after all the Arizona Cardinals aren’t playing so Glendale Arizona is free to play host.
Sporting events would be a sidenote in any circumstance, but especially in light of all the destruction, and the apparent lack of a professional plan and preparedness by the local leadership in southern California…
“Sporting events would be a sidenote in any circumstance, but especially in light of all the destruction, and the apparent lack of a professional plan and preparedness by the local leadership in southern California…”
I gotta say even as cynical as I am, this one made me raise an eyebrow. Glad we have our priorities straight.
Well it’s America so Ford ads, Chevrolet ads and beer ads* must be run in volume during all said events of semi-importance…Thinking back it was only this last week where the early events of New Year’s Day occurred in New Orleans…And a fairly pivotal college football game was delayed into the following afternoon instead.
*And those obligatory advertisements for various US armed forces …Not to knock patriotism but they are always there too along with some Blue Angel or comparable flyover formation.
Bread (utilized to wager online) & Circuses (ever notice how much an NFL playerk looks like an ancient Greek warrior when wearing their helmet halfway on their head while on the sidelines?)
Pretty much the only people in SoCal that have open fires outside are homeless, some of whom certainly fit the drug crazed mob lifestyle moniker.
Shopping carts are class A structures. They do not burn making the homeless a more fire responsible social component then the wealthy in their wooden tinder boxes.
Ever notice how shopping carts took over for trains, as far as hoboes go in these not so united states, in terms of wheeled vehicles?
Henry Moon Pie.
I hope that all is going well for you in the new year.
The cultural reference that popped for me came in reading the linked article by Yasha Levine, “Oligarch farmers and the fires.”
It’s the same old water diversion that was part of the plot of Chinatown (1974).
As Carolinian often remarks, evoking that film,, “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
PS: I know the Wonderful Company only from the occasional bottle of their pomegranate juice. But the Resnicks have loads of cash and influence — possibly because they have stuck with products that are rather soft and cuddly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wonderful_Company
The ironies of pistachio nuts.
Today’s Levine article
Chinatown the movie was of course based on the real history of Los Angeles. And America’s rule by real estate speculators is even older than that. Over to you George Washington.
A funny thing, in combination with Mark Ames’ odd tweet/X post, is that the areas that were threatened/burned by the Eaton fire are heavily East Asian (we don’t usually count as minority by the msm, fwiw. In particular, there was quite a bit of influx into the area from Hong Kong and other areas of Sinosphere in 1990s and oughts. Being close to Monterrey Park, the real Chinatown, probably helped the process.) and, while rather understated compared to Pacific Palisades, quite “comfortable” neighborhoods. There is something odd when the Chinatown movie quote comes up in this context….
I read this morning that a suspect is in custody for setting at least one of the fires. And of course abandoned luxury homes make a tempting target for looters.
Pacific Palisades home prices crashed 20% last year. See State Farm yanking a quarter of the policies. But the mortgage payments didn’t drop. Thousands of homeowners with an incendive, and psychopaths are a measurable percentage of the population.
…like many a good neighbor, State Farm isn’t there
No longer on Facebook but I’d love to test META’s new rules to see if it’s finally OK to say, “Ukraine is losing” or “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.”
As for letting people say untrue bad things? Well, that just lets you know what those people think. It’s good to know who thinks what, much more helpful than knowing who’s been told to STFU.
just ask Dwight Howard how fast the response was
Pro-Semitism is verboten in the pros, fouled in the act of shooting off his mouth.
Yes!
Re; Navigating the Nonsense and Propaganda of Clownish Authoritarianism
I love it when people identify as “democrat” or “republican” because it’s my enemies waving their hands to catch my attention; “here I am!”
In the essay, the author reminds us to look at the reports (the raw data), and not reports of reports when forming our own opinions or judgements: “CSPAN vs CNN.”
In reality, one can only take this so far, and at some point we must extend our trust to persons who have given time to the studies of specific matters… “authorities” leaves an unpleasant taste if I even try to utter the word, and I’m not sure why except to perhaps chalk it up to life-experience.
I did Facebook briefly, but gave it up in 2015 when they wanted me to upload a photo of my ID to confirm my identity, to “secure my account.” Wait… what? Oh hell no!!!
I still have a handful of real-life friends who use Facebook, and these are friendships that have survived clashes of fundamental world-view. I’d love to see the boundaries of Facebook tested, as that will help us understand their confines of thought.
The viability of coalitions piece is good. It is playing out (in terms of the perhaps inevitable fracturing of the Starmer Labour Party in the UK) right now. It has largely gone under the radar that a SECOND borough council right smack bang in the middle of the Labour “Red Wall” has collapsed, with 20 Labour councillors resigning from the party to become independents, with reasons (paraphrased a bit by me) that Starmer is basically a “balance the budget old school Tory who actively despises MMT”.
Nottinghamians can be forgiven for thinking “here we go again”. Another section of the “donut” of councils surrounding Nottingham has defected from Labour. The first defection – Ashfield – was basically a bunch of people with, let’s just say, questionable views, went independent then to Tory and then largely Reform. Broxtowe is potentially different. These “rebels” are manifestly from the LEFT of the party and whilst I could be wrong, are unlikely to be secret Reform leaning. Indeed a former Tory MP loudmouth has already piped up saying they were troublemakers the moment Starmer ousted Corbyn and are lefties. (Which means they’re good in my books).
The Red Wall central portion (being the seats in the City of Nottingham but more seriously, the donut of seats surrounding it) is collapsing barely 6 months into Starmer’s govt. Richard Murphy and others have correctly diagnosed the problem and what needs to be done but the Starmer stalwarts refuse to listen. My mother was the only person in our household to vote Labour last year: now she has said she’s tempted by Reform. (Which given their views locally would probably put a homo like me on the street. If you think that’s hyperbole please look up the electoral history of Gedling Ward in Westminster elections in the 1990s.) Starmer is manifestly failing to deliver on polices that would attract a broad coalition. If he continues like this, his govt is dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.
A quote toward the conclusion of today’s link to “A Day in the Life of a Prolific Phishing Crew” seems apropos:
“In short, a person whose moral compass lets them rob old people will also be a bad business partner,”
Thanks. Yeah, my mum tends to go on very black-and-white issues now. She is not PC-literate but spends half her day on Faceborg on her ipad. She admits she actively trolls.
Whilst I would argue most of her trolling is unhelpful, she has been part of a wave of older people who have decided “that gay local MP who seems so nice actually voted to cut all sorts of things that help our household so I’m gonna troll him constantly”.
I don’t endorse this, but I understand it. (This sounds a bit like the state of affairs with Mangione). Attack our MP on grounds of being incompetent and in effect working in a “flat earth world” rather than recognising MMT etc. Don’t devolve to the arguments used by morons……I don’t wanna be victimised because mum cheers on the mob. I’ve already had physical abuse for wearing a mask. I’m kinda sick of this stuff.
They seem to be a little late to the game to realise that Starmer would not be much of an improvement on the Tories. I find it quite frustrating to see that the left in Labour is so disorganised that it can’t do anything but make small scale protests, rather than do the only real thing that would make Labour change – run candidates against Labour.
They could do well to look at the Social Democrats in Ireland. They emerged when a number of Labour Party members abandoned the coalition government 15 years ago in protest at austerity. The Irish Labour Party (including its alleged far left wing) had enthusiastically embraced major cut backs, leading to a number of prominent members to leave. They very purposely didn’t identify themselves as to the left or right of Labour, they simply let their candidates represent something newer (with, admittedly, quite ambiguous policies). After a slow start, they are now a real alternative and in the last election won more seats than the Irish Labour Party.
The Reform situation is really mind bending. A few years ago the notion that not just the Tories, but Labour too could be wiped out electorally, leading to a majority government involving a bizarre hodge podge of ultra conservatives and far right activists would have been considered extremely far fetched. But now it seems like a genuine possibility.
Couldn’t agree more.
But, as so memorably put on this site so many times, we live in the stupidest timeline. I witness all the worst case scenario stuff politically here on a daily basis.
I give up.
“Turkish chef recreates 8,600-year-old Neolithic bread”
‘Peas, barley, and wheat were key ingredients in ancient loaf, shows grain analysis’
I’m trying to imagine what bread like that would taste like. There seems to be a knack to it because it took that chef quite a few tries before he got it right but I wonder if there is a modern equivalent to such a bread in traditional communities.
I don’t know about traditional communities, but there are lots of barley/wheat bread recipes online. I suspect that if one looked harder one could find some with pea flour in there as well. But the concept is apparently commercially viable so it can’t taste all that bad:
https://www.fairwaymarket.com/sm/planning/rsid/4000/product/arnold-grains-almighty-sprouted-wheat-pea-protein-&-chickpea-flour-thinsliced-bread-1-lb-4-oz-00073410957837
>Saying ‘No’: On Power And Reality 3 Quarks Daily
Right from the beginning paragraph I had a problem with this article:
I have a tendency to be interested mostly in the view sub specie aeternitatis, in the deep truths of the world, what it is, what we are, and how it all hangs together, rather than in the accidents of human squabbling.
I would counter that “human squabbling” is far from an “accident.” The world, the human world, has never been without conflict of one sort or another, at least on a social level. Prima philosophia, at some point, must come to terms with politics.
I’m not sure I would characterize Daniel Dennett as “great” as the author does.
He states that “all power ends somewhere” and then in the several paragraph down he says “the nature of power is to grow unbounded.”
I also think that the author has a subtle case of TDS, his zeroing on Trump is telling.
In discussions of the conduit of once-and-future president Trump, the sheer volume and obviousness of his incessant lies often takes center stage. It boggles the mind how he can ‘get away with it’, with the implicit conceit here being a corrective pull exerted by reality to hold him accountable for his constant disregard of truth.
The article covers many interesting aspects of “power and reality” that I can chew on, even if only providing a counter point to my own views.
Yes, I quite agree.
It reads as if, slowly, one subtle turn of the jack at a time, this scholar of “deep truths” has had is laboratory hoisted up with the foundations of the Vampire’s Castle. He wasn’t aware of floating free into a hyper-reality and thus can’t tell the difference between a Trump utterance and one of Putins. I’m not romanticizing Putin, he’s no doubt done some murderously ruthless things to be and stay where he is, but to compare his public statements to those of Trump is prima facie evidence not actually being familiar with what one is talking about.
The first half of the essay, however, is a good distillation of the effects of Post Modern discourse in converting Capitalism / money into an unacknowledged religion.
On the drive home from Mammoth yesterday, the horizon had the look of a cabernet sauginon once I started down into the Central Valley, and I put on LA newsradio KNX 1070-a CBS affiliate, which had pretty much non-stop coverage of the fires, and anytime an official was queried about things such as water mains being drained-quickly the questions were diverted to the brave firefighters and their heroic stand.
They mentioned firefighters were draining out swimming pools-certainly a good source as I related yesterday-each containing 30,000 gallons, but it gives you an idea of how desperate the water situation is, and the drama has many more days to unfold.
One reporter mentioned all the convict firefighters, and stressed that ‘these were the good inmates’.
When we were at Saline hot springs over new year, the usual flyover of F-15, F-18 and F-35 fighters from China Lake and Lemoore Naval Air Stations a few hundred feet above the ground at 500 mph occurred, and what a waste, imagine if the money had been spent on firefighting aircraft and helicopters instead?
I bet that they were sorry that they had cut the firefighting budget by $17 million and had sent all that fire-fighting gear to the Ukraine. And when LA’s mayor Karen Bass was MIA, it reminded me of when Oz was all afire a few years ago the PM – Scotty from Marketing – was relaxing in Hawaii after hardly telling anybody that he was going.
re: Arctic Plague ship
What a disgrace! Well worth reading both parts of the story.
Those who are particularly incensed might consider contacting some of the company’s “partners”, and airing their thoughts:
https://thearcticcircle.org/partners/
Having said all of that, those who sadly suffered from the negligence really should have done more careful due diligence. It’s the first, and best line of defense.
In attitude, that O’Connor sounds a lot like that CEO Stockton Rush who led those people to their deaths aboard the Titan submersible back in 2023. The same sort of arrogance and disregard for people’s lives.
That a boatload of successful brainy creatives would become more a ship of fools. Irony abounds. I don’t see much difference between those in charge of the voyage and those in charge of public policy writ large.
Re: Prolific Voice Phishing Crew
From the comments:
«Note to self: Instead of guessing at the legitimacy of a caller – just always hang up – and then initiate contact myself – using my own bookmarks or my own contact list.»
Don’t even answer the phone. Just because it wants your attention doesn’t mean you have to provide it. Unless I recognize a number as being from somebody I know, it goes unanswered. 99% of the callers never leave a message. Saves me a lot of time.
I Sometimes answer, and count to 1 second (before the computer transfers) and then hang up. The computer counts it as a not answered and doesn’t try again. A real person (if they fumble saying hi right away), will call back. – sometimes I am expecting a call from a business but not sure what the number will be.
Sometimes when we get a call from a telemarketer, the very first sound I hear sounds exactly like a sound effect from the old computer game “Duke Nukem.” Why this is so I have no idea but it is a dead tell that it is from India.
Boy howdy, this is something I am trying to impress upon my elderly mother. She’s already fallen for a fake Microsoft support scam once. I try to tell her she doesn’t have to answer the phone every time it wrings, but she protests that she’s never sure if it’s a doctor or something important. I counter that the doctors, who don’t call that often, won’t show up as an out of area code number or no caller ID and if it’s really important, this is why you have voice mail. But old habits die hard I guess and she’s determined to answer every call she gets and I’ve resigned myself that she’ll probably end up getting scammed again.
My phone mutes any unknown numbers. I end up averaging 2-3 silenced calls a day. Unknown (to me) numbers. No messages.
“If you’d like to leave a message, text me.”
I don’t pick up unknown numbers unless it’s local.
I’ve managed to teach elderly mother to largely ignore unknown numbers. She still sometimes answers but I’ve been teaching her to say nothing upon answering to see if a real person is there. She now knows that if there’s no voice then to put the phone down immediately.
Spammers might know it’s an active line but I hope the lack of human validation puts the number on a “less spam worthy” list.
re: Musk, AfD. and the EU clutching its pearls. / ;)
‘Big Brother is watching you’ – 150 EU officials expected to monitor Elon Musk conversation with Alice Weidel, possible ban on the table
The EU is pulling out all the stops to monitor the Alice Weidel and Elon Musk interview, all while French officials put forward the idea of an EU-wide ban on X
https://rmx.news/article/big-brother-is-watching-you-150-eu-officials-expected-to-monitor-elon-musk-conversation-with-alice-weidel-possible-ban-on-the-table/
Biden’s Title Xi Rules:
+ Insult Xi Jinpeng by calling him a dictator
+ Rant that “nobody wants to be Xi Jinpeng” at a presser
+ Forget that he just insulted him and ask Blinken to set up another summit
Okay, you got a laugh from me…
I aim to please, but what will I do in ten days when I don’t have old Joe to kick around anymore?
Don’t worry. The Regent Vance Administration will make you guffaw.
Remember, the CEO Protector is here to preserve your G-d given right to consume mass quantities. Now to deal with the Rump Congress.
Zee jobz come in hot:
BLS monthly labor report
Oh noez! The bond market no likey … we’re headed towards Old Blighty status. Paging Jay Powell, you’re wanted for cleanup on aisle twenty-twenty-five.
#FedPolicyError!
Zee jobz come in hot: zose jobz, zey sux.
I’d love to see a graph showing the degradation of the median wage to actual cost of living ratio.
For the last thirty years or so it has been new jobs at lower useful wages.
Whether by design or not, the useful strategy employed by “The Capitalist System” for its own self-preservation has been to encourage the illusion that anyone can become rich through their own hard work.
By obscuring Aristocracy and highlighting Meritocracy, the Capitalist class has so far endured. Now, however, the rise of the highly visible Oligarchs has begun to relegitimize the idea of an Aristocracy sitting atop the socio-economic pyramid. Hilarity will ensue but not be evenly distributed.
“The mysterious ways of Donald J. Trump”
So Trump put out a video from Greenland of MAGA supporters wanting Greenland to be a part of the US and all of them were wearing brand-new MAGA caps. One old boy said that he wanted to be part of the US because of their education and healthcare systems which was kinda weird-
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113801152970385739 (1:50 min)
But Trump also put out a statement saying that after Panama and Greenland, that those were his last territorial demands that he had to make.
Kinda like Georgia and Ukraine, except those belonged to the “bad guys,” unlike colonies of the “good guys”? I’ll confess that I’m finding this hilarious.
To conclude with a “Non-Aggression” pact with Russia?
/s
RAND: Visions on Restraint for US foreign policy.
My life, particularly my early work life, was molded by WW II. My first CO and his executive officer were WW II veterans……
I was deeply sensitive to the commitment for “no more Pearl Harbors”. Forward defense and readiness!
Was “no more Pearl Harbors” a cover to build an empire?
I am over twenty years retired from service. Maybe the WW II effects are fading? Certainly, the concern for readiness is less.
That said I found RAND breaking Ukraine out from European strategy somewhat puzzling, I think Ukraine is a subset of that ETO…. using WW II views.
No more Pearl Harbors, no more Holocausts, no more other bad things for selected people. For others, it’s Pearl Harbors galore. Bombs away!
Absolutely, humans use high “morality” and slogans to justify mayhem and murder.
No more Versailles? No more Danzig? No more Sudetenland? (Esp the last one…)
Pearl Harbors are a constant in order to fire up the troops and populace. Remember the Maine! and so on. It’s a racket or has become one–war is useful for Washington to seize power from the people and bloat. Today US wars are ways to make money and play power games.
Earth records hottest
ever yearyear since 1850 in 2024 and crosses key 1.5C threshold.Growing up in LA in the aftermath of the 1961 Bel Air Fire which took out about 500 homes on the tony Westside, one curious thing you’d see occasionally on new home construction after the conflagration was roofs without wood shingles, and a bunch of small rocks in their place.
Except the rocks were all stuck down with asphalt
They were all white rocks too, never brown or black ones. The roof would have this kitschy sparkly gleam.
“Ships Must Practice Celestial Navigation”
The authors are quite right about this. And it is not as novel as it sounds as once all ships navigated this way. You can just imagine a carrier in the Pacific suddenly have all access to navigational aids hacked. After looking around and seeing only ocean in every direction, the position of the sun would at least tell them which is east and which is west. By heading east in the daytime with lookouts stationed everywhere, they would reckon that sooner or later they would see the American coastline and follow it back to the nearest port.
US Naval ships have had inertial navigation since WWII. How do you think submarines navigate and battleships aim their cannons?
A tall order.
The post by Branko Milanović caught my eye, “To the Finland Station.” He is evoking Edmund Wilson’s great study of the history of the Russian Revolution(s) of 1917. Arguably, the February Revolution was even more pivotal than the October Revolution because the February Revolution ended the rule of the tsars, curtailing imperial power. On the other hand, the October Revolution did reorganize society and the economy over the next five years or so…
I recommend the article to you for Milanović’s hypothesis: When one is at a pivotal event, can one recognize the pivotal event?
I am somewhat skeptical that Trump’s inauguration ends the neoliberal era.
I have been contemplating, though, how neoliberalism became obeisance to markets, misguided use of power, exploitation of self-caused foreign-policy and neocolonial crises, and reliance on genocide. What is notable about neoliberalism is that ethics, personal and public, is now wreckage.
Speaking of wreckage, though, I will note that the thoroughly neoliberal Democratic Party (less so the Partito Democratico of Italy, also thoroughly compromised) lived up to its neoliberal role as the place where social movements go to die. The current wreckage of feminism is emblematic of a social movement that was willingly coopted to serve the market and wield power in a way that has been in no way revolutionary. Hillary Clinton and the upper-middle-class ladies who dominate the movement want “incremental” change.”
Yet I’m so old I recall when feminists claimed that they would usher in peace and better orgasms for everyone. We collectively ended up with Victoria Nuland and the mythical cookies.
Meanwhile, Adolph Reed has chronicled the decline of black-liberation politics in the U S of A. The U.S. labor movement hasn’t detached from the Dems and is barely holding on. The liberation of gayfolk deflated, ironically, with the arrival of equal marriage and was re-deflated as gender became a substitute for the stress among U.S. gay liberation movements on civil rights.
But does this mean that the U.S. citizenry (less so the rest of the world) is now on the platform at the Finland Station waiting for the train to stop, the door to open, and the discovery of a revolutionary figure descending the steps?
With only a shoeshine and as smile?
Kinda hard to imagine Trump as Kerensky, but here we are…
And Saint Elon as Rasputin?
More like Trotsky.
I think neoliberalism has bankrupted itself and has no immediate future. If you’ve ever been in a downward spiral they don’t get better until you’ve been dragged all the way down. .
They’ll give Trump credit like they credited Reagan with ending the Soviet Union which is annoying but whatever if the greater good is served and neoliberalism AND neoconservatism are eradicated from our political spectrum.
Banning national parties might be the way to go. There is no way neoliberals could have captured all the state parties had they not had the DNC doing the dirty work for them. No DNC, each state is up for grabs. Only national party gathering of any kind would be quadrennial conventions of state delegations deciding who gets nominated. That would be worth watching!
FYI, if I were still a Democrat I would absolutely want to see the national party blown up. Democrats cannot recover from the top down, they can only recover from the grassroots up and that only if the DNC allows them to and stops pillaging the states for fat cat donations. DJG is right that every movement in the party gets coopted, but if you dismantle the national party the corrupters would find themselves with fifty (plus) state parties to deal with.
The best thing the Donkey Show could claim about Kamalalf (homage to Landon) was that she raised a billion Dollars, and they were right, er left 10 figures to dole out to all the left people.
The February revolution was just that. The October Revolution™ was a coup.
At most Trump’s revolution can bring some honesty to the equation. We are a hyper-materialistic consumer society without any credible moral standards–but we pretend otherwise much to the tears of people on the receiving end of imperialism. When the populace begins to accept a more spiritual culture then the deeper change many of us on the intellectual margins of society hope for will come and not before. The culture of narcissism must change first.
Nonetheless, great comment!
No, you have misunderstood. Finland station was a Pet Shop Boys reference, the implication being that Xi and Putin are the real men (East end boys), while Trump and Musk are weak women (West end – ie western – girls)
Responsible Statecraft: Firing US generals! A fine concept!
George C Marshall did a lot of replacing, Eisenhower had a lot of firing to do….
MacArthur (as in 1951! he missed a few 100 thousand PLA) should have been sacked for losing the Philippines, but he enjoyed huge popularity playing his “return”, while the fleet carriers got the headlines.
I have read Marc Bloch’s “Strange Defeat”. With it should also be read: “Strange Victory” by Earnest R May.
Bloch from the French side, May broader and deeper academic, researched history including the German side!
The Allies’ was a failure of imagination, and aggression, the Germans’ a victory of audacity and good fortune!
A quality common to military victors is luck.
To the current dilemma in the MIC, too many generals, too much fruit salad on their chests! Too many compromises. To much bureaucracy, too much money to weapons who books fail audit!
Failing audit the entire ‘board of directors’ of the pentagon needs to be sacked.
too much fruit salad on their chests
My father and his disgruntled veteran friends used to joke that the large ribbon displays made it look like the brass had puked on themselves.
Biden & Kamala Fight at Jimmy Carter’s Funeral (AI)
Heh heh heh, no lip reading required.
Of course they did. It is customary to have Funeral Games at the interment of an Emperor.
What better way to demonstrate the Imperial Ethos than to publicly humiliate a failed claimant to the Purple?
RE: Ships Must Practice Celestial Navigation
There once was a ship with a sextant
No longer in use, when the deckhand
Shouted “The lights are all out
and there are bergs all about.
Learn quick or we’ll no longer be extant.”
“Lip reader reveals Trump told Obama they will ‘find a quiet place’ to discuss ‘matter of importance’ at Jimmy Carter funeral”
So for months people were being told that the moustache-man was trying to take over the country while St. Obama was fighting the good fight against him. It was good vs evil and it was breaking apart families all over the country. And yet here we see the reality – two guys joking around and setting up private meetings like they were old college buddies.
In looking at video from that service, I could see the potential for a great painting. You had the Bidens and the Harrises sitting next to each other and you could see the tension. Behind them was Hillary & Bill like the ghosts of Christmas past. You had Obama and Trump having their private meeting causing heads to turn by those in front. It would make a really great painting.
Loose lips sync slips?
WWF Wrestlemania comes to mind … it’s all fake.
The hate between the Harris’ and the Bidens might be real, though.
Funny that Biden shows more displeasure and disrespect to his own VP than he does the “literal Hitler” Donald Trump. It’s almost like they don’t really believe their own tales of Trump. Hmm…
In 2018 they renewed the Patriot Act for Hitler to govern under; their bs “Resistance” was never anything other than factional theater for the rubes to get excited about.
My PMC friends were all over this, but it was all about how St. O was schooling Trump about something. That is their world – banging on Trump for something/anything while slobbering over anything democrat.
I think the laughing part is pretty easy; they are laughing at us. St.O and St. T are two of the biggest hucksters to ever hold the office. They ARE the big club, we are not, and they think its funny.
>That is their world – banging on Trump for something/anything while slobbering over anything democrat.
Absolutely.
I’m not particularly fond of the guy but you know ten minutes after Trump is sworn in, if the weather turns nasty, it’s Trump’ fault. Car battery died? Trump’s fault.
Kid got a C on their report card? Trump’s fault. Ants invade your picnic? Cloudy sky when you wanted to have brunch outside? Earthquake? Typhoon and flooding in Bangladesh? Comet heading towards Earth? Couple stars in the Milky Way galaxy go supernova?
Didn’t get that raise? Laid off? Got a headache? Constipated? Knees ache?
All of it,100% Donald J. Trump is the reason! Damn his hide!
I’ve just written MSM headlines and PMC talking points for the next 4 years. Can’t you just smell the hair on fire right now?
Oh, and if only Biden or Kamala had won…
You got it. I’m seeing him being blamed for the CA wildfires…somehow.
But he lies don’t ya know. They hate him because he lies. They hate him because he doesn’t play by the rules. The democrats never lie and always play by the rules. Yes, I was told that. Anyone who doesn’t believe that is a racist knuckle-dragging mouth breathing hick from the sticks who is too stupid to vote.
They are funny to watch and listen to though. Just yesterday they were aghast about something, I don’t remember what, but whatever it was had nothing to do with fixing the economy – how dare him!!!
What, the same economy that was the greatest economy ever under Biden/Harris? You dumb people just don’t know how great it was because you are dumb and don’t read the right news or listen to the WH press secretary. Now it sucks and Orange Hitler isn’t fixing it.
The next four years will be a hoot.
I think the truest and most perfect huckster are the Clintons–the Obamas and the Donald are not up to the level of the Clintons–even the Bushes are not in that league.
I love it when lipreaders pipe up. It happened at funeral of QE2 as well. I don’t recall anything outrageous (maybe the heads of state had been warned) but there were IIRC minor titbits.
Ironically the people who seemed most normal were the European monarchs who generally seemed to enjoy small talk and genuinely look out for each other (like the King of Norway who insisted on standing at key points despite infirmity and accepted help from other monarchs).
Whilst not generally a monarchist I have to admit I LOLLED at the Danish king changing the royal coat of arms to show Greenland was definitely Danish and thereby needle Trump! Low-key monarchs rule!
off above topics and on crapification…
I have been baffled by the number of obvious typos in major newspapers and assumed it was a lack of editors as a primary problem, but I have started to catch ‘auto-correct’ make an astonishing number of errors, mostly omission, wanting to change an underutilized english phrase into something simple, but lately some commission errors as well.
e.g. I was sending a text to a colleague about a cancellation. Auto-correct turned it into cancelation, which per my research is a possible alternate spelling, but certainly not the standard.
Thanks Artificial Ignorance!
I’ve had AI insistently autocorrect its and it’s for a long time, the wrong way.
I noticed very obvious mistakes becoming hugely common before AI was a thing.
There is an entire generation of people who have not heard words being taught and so cannot pronounce them correctly. There are also huge numbers of people whose English is beyond crap. I’m willing to accept changes in English over time if it doesn’t make comprehension impossible. But changes that actively make discourse impossible? Nope.
Now I’ll return to shouting at clouds.
Autocorrect has improved my spelling and grammar. I look up everything it tries to correct that I’m the least unsure of…
“Competing Visions of Restraint for U.S. Foreign Policy”, RAND
Wow! If even RAND writes on how to downsize the empire, it means something is really changing. It looks like a critical mass has been reached about the awareness of the unsustainability of the costs of running it.
If we’re lucky the planet might be a better place in 5-10 years. Ofc, not holding my breath, sadly.
Very interesting incipit: “Deep engagers call for the United States to remain a security leader in three key regions — East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East”.
All these three hotspots are located along the heartland border. Probably is coincidence but all of them sport one or more simmering conflicts which can be conveniently switched on or off:
– Balkans, Ukraine and Caucasus
– Koreas and eventually Taiwn
– Israel (its mere presence is assured chaos)
Curiously, the allowed options are between retrenchment from Europe or from East Asia, while Middle East is simply taboo and hence non sequitur. The pressure from the Israel lobby must be reall irresistible!
Finland is getting groomed for war.
New PSYOP: Pro-War Propaganda Preps Finns To Die For NATO | Prof. Tuomas Malinen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YZc3l3rhoY
I have been wondering for some time about Scandinavian death-metal music and its deeper meaning in terms of society–they are ready to make war now, it seems. No more humanism for them the berserker tradition has come back!
Saw a BBC video with a reporter encountering spent bullet shells on the streets of fire ravaged areas where the heat had caused them to cook off…
A good many areas of LA nowhere near the fires have had their power off for a few days now, combined with a lack of water pressure, and this saga has a lot of drama left on the stage yet.
We’ve been pressured to get as armed and dangerous as possible in this sick country of ours, but you can’t drink an assault rifle or eat ammo-
In lieu of weaponry I’ve just mentioned, you could have bought this instead:
20x 2.5 gallon rectangles of water
1x 2 burner Coleman stove
10x 1 pound propane canisters
20x freeze dried meals
10 or 12 million people living cheek by jowl in the LA basin. We live a couple of hundred miles beyond but the potential diaspora is frightening. I’m sure you have read Lucifer’s Hammer, SF story that speaks to the roving hordes coming from LA into the central valley looking for food and anything else that can be taken. The successful defense was staged in Springville. I think Three rivers was eaten.
Yeah, I read it eons ago and we don’t fare well (unless you are into that sort of thing in long pig fashion, please pass the A-1) here in Tiny Town, but in theory it was only a novel.
Imagine thousands of shopping carts being pushed over the Ridge Route
Four wheels good?
Here in the North American Deep South, we have all of the above.
Plan for the worst case scenario and you will not be disappointed.
You need something, er, kinetic capable to defend the defensible position with. AI Battle Bears are not going to cut it, literally.
Stay safe. Prep responsibly.
Backstory:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/09/business/jcpenney-new-owner/index.html
“A zombie mall store king is born: JCPenney merges with Forever 21 owner”
Malls That Rot
(As sung by Richard Burton from “Camelot” from the Musical)
It’s true! It’s true!
The market’s made it clear
They’ll prop up dying retail stores all year!
A law was made a distant moon ago here:
A mal-investment cannot go for naught
And there’s no legal limit to the games, here
In malls that rot
Profits are unheard of ’til December
By March the weeds poke out in parking lots
By order, no AC right through September
In malls that rot
Malls that rot!
Malls that rot!
I know it sounds a bit bizarre
But in malls that rot, malls that rot
That’s how conditions are
The rain leaks through the roof till after sundown
By eight another tenant disappears
In short, there’s simply not
A more depressing spot
For capital malfunctioning than here
In malls that rot
Malls that rot!
Malls that rot
There’s worn-out carpet on the floor
But in malls that rot, malls that rot
No one’s walking through the doors …
The crowds may never throng from yon and hither
By Three PM the janitors appear
In short, there’s simply not
A more depressing spot
For capital destruction-ing than here
In malls that rot
That was quite the effort, take a bow.
Forever worth a Penney?
Excellent! Every time I go back for a reunion, it strikes me how Honolulu can thank its lucky stars that Ala Moana Center has not yet joined the moribund-mall death march.
It’s weird, in my locale there is a thriving mall closer to the city center, but the suburban one to the north looks like a scene from “The Walking Dead.”
The carpet was literally worn-out in the zombie mall when I visited it after x-mas, and most of the stores just closed up early.
About Ireland, what may be too little understood is that in a remarkably short time Ireland has gone from being among the poorest of countries in the European Union to the second richest country after Luxembourg. Ireland is a rich country, very rich and the data show the riches of Ireland have been spread wide.
Ireland’s per capita GDP in 2024 had risen to $127,750, as compared to rich Switzerland at $95,837. Life expectancy for Ireland is far higher than for Britain, infant mortality much lower. Education is excellent all through. Employment rates for men and women are very high. Ireland has a huge trade surplus relative to GDP. Debt relative to GDP is of no significance. Inflation is no problem.
Mean does not necessarily equal median or mode. Yet everyone is fixated on means.
Ireland and the UK are demonstrably basket cases once you look at medians. I don’t need my stats background to know this. My Irish family members are furious and dying……just like so many here in UK.
How’s that children’s hospital in Dublin doing?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1xldC
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Ireland, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1tBD0
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece and Germany, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1uzgb
August 4, 2014
Real per capita Gross Domestic Product for China, Germany and Ireland, 1977-2023
(Indexed to 1977)
Watching a metaphor develop: Mark Ames
in which the Santa Ana winds are a celestial Luigi.
Something is happening. I’m not sure what it is. Luigi Mangione is not going into that good night. The Santa Ana winds are indicating a change, a crack in the mandate of heaven.
These signs and portents, though, don’t lead to a conclusion that the Trump administration is going to accomplishing anything other than larger-than-life trolling. The Elon and Vivek scams are already a tad whiffy. The expansion into Greenland is wigged out. Trump himself is a great negotiator in the American style — which means an overbearing and incompetent pest.
Kamala Harris, J.D. Vance, and Pete Buttigieg are all biding their time. Undoubtedly, the Harris staff, whatever is left of it, is telling her that “I’m Speaking” put the fear of heaven into the electorate.
My longtime backpacking partner in LA texted me that he has 1 evacuee friend and another has called asking for similar domicile and of course he’ll accommodate her as well, and it’ll be cramped quarters somewhat in mysterious Shadow Hills (9 out of 10 Angelenos have no idea where it is) and he relates that he isn’t in any danger from the fires, but shift happens and if need be, I’ll be the next refugio for everybody.
We really started 2025 off with a bang!
Not sure how your geographic location relates to the fires. Please stay safe.
There are still 10 days left for Joe to start another war.
I’m a few hundred miles north and everything here is quite green with about a 6 inch height on the links of the fairway sans holes, balls & clubs.
No winds here, and nothing but sunny days in the 10 day forecast.
Good.
I just realized that while we only have 10 days for Joe to start a new war, Trump has already started one with Greenland and another with Canada. We won’t lack for wars.
…they aren’t making anymore muskeg
China seems to be powering ahead with the idea of sending solar power from space to earth. That was a future I remember being promised as a kid. It would be good if we in the West also worked on those sorts of things, particularly since Space-X has reduced the cost of lifting all that equipment.