On what possible basis does the US presume to interfere with the lawful legitimate right of international passage/shipping?
Posted by: John Gilberts | Mar 24 2025 19:29 utc | 95
———————————————————————————–In 1999, the U.S., under NATO’s banner, bombed Yugoslavia without explicit UN Security Council approval, relying on overwhelming military force to impose its will. The U.S. and its allies argued that the urgency of the crisis trumped procedural legality, effectively using might to enforce a self-defined right.

Posted by: Zbigniew Jacniacki | Mar 24 2025 23:38 utc | 104

Hamburg built themselves a modern coal-fired power plant with 2x800MW and secondary district heating capability. It went online in 2015, but was only ever used in back-up mode, ostensibly to save the local ecosystem. It was shut down in 2021 and is planned to be replaced by a hydrogen terminal. Now the explosive demolition of one of the two boilers has failed – youtube video.

Posted by: persiflo | Mar 25 2025 0:09 utc | 106

Genocide or Veracicide
Will NATO’s Lying Ever Stop?
by Stephen Gowans
July 23, 2001
—————————–

Now that Slobodan Milosevic has been dragged to The Hague to face charges of deportation, persecution, and murder, we might ask, “Should he be there at all?”

……………..

Certainly, the prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte thinks so, as does NATO and its leaders. And so too do editorialists, and journalists and probably, in the West, about 99 percent of the population

…………………..

Canadians, sad to say, have played a grim role in the whole affair, out of all proportion to the country’s size. Canadian politicians boast that Canada’s pilots flew 10 percent of the sorties against Yugoslavia, the third greatest number, after the UK and the US. They don’t mention the obvious implication: Canada killed 10 percent of the people. And Canadians have been involved in absolving NATO. The man who wrote the report declaring NATO innocent of war crimes was a Canadian.

Posted by: denk | Mar 25 2025 1:42 utc | 108

Posted by: denk | Mar 25 2025 2:23 utc | 109
Pre-1989 editions it was GORKI 400

Posted by: Newbie | Mar 25 2025 2:50 utc | 110

Pre-1989 editions it was GORKI 400
Posted by: Newbie | Mar 25 2025 2:50 utc | 110
——————–
Yes that’s during the cold war with USSR
By 1989, China was the bogeyman, what with TAM GENOCIDE and all that jazz.

Posted by: denk | Mar 25 2025 3:01 utc | 112

Tom Lugano called Imamoglu a WEF boot licker and saw Erdogan as standing up for Turkish interests. Lugano is very focused on an EU /WEF structure eliminating any remaining sovernty in Europe and crushing the Central Banks so there is a central ruling structure. The secular Turks are still totally bamboozled by US/EU freedom and democracy bullshit. Still, Erdogan is the embodiment of treachery, so it’s not clear if there are any good guys in this. Mostly the thinking is the the revolts won’t be powerful enough to unseat Erdogan.

Posted by: Deniz | Mar 25 2025 3:13 utc | 114

Old timers please skip…

A detailed investigative report on how the Milosevic regime was brought down through a carefully-orchestrated campaign under the guidance of US-based “pro-democracy” organisations using Mahatma Gandhi’s techniques of massive non-violent civil disobedience was carried by the “Washington Post” on December 11,2000.
About 70,000 Yugoslav students, intellectuals, miners and other workers were secretly taken to Budapest in Hungary and trained in special camps set up there on mass demonstration techniques.

Who is Col. Robert Helvey?
He was an officer of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) of the Pentagon, who had served in Vietnam and, subsequently, as the US Defence Attache in Yangon, Myanmar, (1983 to 85) during which he clandestinely organised the Myanmarese students to work behind Aung San Suu Kyi and in collaboration with Bo Mya’s Karen insurgent group. He was subsequently based in Thailand where he organised the training of the student and Karen supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi. In 1988-89, he also trained in Hong Kong the student leaders from Beijing in mass demonstration techniques which they were to subsequently use in the Tiananmen Square incident of June,1989. He is now believed to be acting as an adviser to the Falun Gong, the religious sect of China, in similar civil disobedience techniques, which the sect is using with increasing effectiveness against the Chinese authorities. He has ostensibly retired from the DIA in 1991

https://tinyurl.com/mrphm78m

Posted by: denk | Mar 25 2025 3:39 utc | 116

One more for the road…
Panama is just the first salvo.
—-
FMC to probe 7 ocean chokepoints to improve shipping …
Supply Chain Dive
https://www.supplychaindive.com › news › fmc-to-pro…
5 days ago — The Federal Maritime Commission may bar container ships registered in countries it says are contributing to congestion and delays from entering U.S. ports.
FMC Launches Inquiry to Seven High-Risk Maritime Routes
Supply Chain World magazine
https://scw-mag.com › news › fmc-launches-inquiry-to-…
13 hours ago — The FMC investigates chokepoints like the Panama and Suez Canals to reduce global shipping delays.
—————-
kinda like they conduct FON in SCS TO ‘deter disruption’ from China !
Signing off !

Posted by: denk | Mar 25 2025 4:22 utc | 118

Have you seen how far 3D printing has come?
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 25 2025 4:43 utc | 119
—
3D printing my ass. For production throughput with tight tolerances die casting is the way.
CUBE technology saves 40 % cycle time ==> https://youtu.be/KmFMxMfKdrE
Aluminum cylinder heads ==> https://youtu.be/IGwQFYMGo6o?t=82

Posted by: too scents | Mar 25 2025 5:47 utc | 120

Tom Pfotzer @76 re: China’s “dark factories”
Pretty amazing stuff, but only works for the early-adopters in capitalism, and then only until the competition applies similar tooling. Market forces will drive competition to also go fully automated, but at that point profit rates drop to 0%… you cannot exploit a robot. They don’t work harder if you flog them. Robots are fixed capital and transfer their cost/value to the product according to depreciation tables. Like a milling machine or a hammer, they cannot produce more value than is crystallized in their production; they cannot produce surplus value that can be expropriated for profits. Profits from “dark factories” can only come from over-charging for the products they produce, and you can only over-charge so long as the competition doesn’t go with the same tech and drive prices down.
Full automation production is a wonderful achievement for humanity, but it ultimately means the end of capitalism.

Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 25 2025 11:20 utc | 122

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 23 2025 16:21 utc | 10
Once you clearly understand taxes are used to drain demand from the economy and they NEVER fund anything. Then you get a better understanding of this.
Tariffs As A Fiscal Tool?
Here:
https://bondeconomics.substack.com/p/tariffs-as-a-fiscal-tool
One entirely plausible scenario is that Trump re-enacts the Liz Truss meltdown by making a massive income tax cut matched by a fairly chunky universal tariff increase that was supposed to “pay for” the tax cut.
You can think it through by yourself from there.
1) You give the non government sector tax cuts that will either be saved or spent by those who receive the tax cuts. Could be inflationary. As an increase in demand caused by government spending, tax cuts or increased bank loans can be inflationary. If there are not enough skills and real resources laying idle to soak up the extra demand.
Ideologues with IQ’s in single figures only point and then shout at government spending here. Completely ignore tax cuts and bank lending.
Why ? Because they are as dumb as a bag of spanners.
2) Now that you have removed a large amounts of taxes from the economy with the tax cuts. That were being used to drain demand to help control inflation.
He is going to try and replace those taxes he has just removed from the economy with tariffs. Which in themselves can raise the price level on the domestic private sector.
So as you can see both ideas that are supposed to compliment each other can be inflationary.
It’s as mad as what Lizz Truss attempted during a pandemic and a war when the supply side was already struggling and has bottle necks and shortages and she wanted to slash taxes and increase demand.
Once you understand taxes don’t fund anything and what they are actually for. You can see what he is trying to do.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 25 2025 11:30 utc | 124

Correction to above:
Trump Floats Shock Tariff Backflip…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14533395/Donald-Trump-floats-shock-tariff-backflip.html
“Canada and Mexico may get some relief after Donald Trump said ‘reciprocal tariffs’ may not be as harsh as he once promised…”

Posted by: John Gilberts | Mar 25 2025 11:39 utc | 126

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 23 2025 16:21 utc | 10
So what’s the difference between government spending and a tax cut ?
What about an increase in government spending?
So what happens when government increases spending by $100 to stimulate total spending in the economy?
That spending will enter the economy directly and stimulate sales and production (if there is idle capacity).
Remember the basic macroeconomic rule – aggregate demand drives output with generates incomes (via payments to the productive inputs). Capitalism is run on sales.
That one person’s income is another person’s expenditure and so the more the latter spends the more the former will receive and spend in turn – repeating the process.
What is spent will generate income in that period which is available for use. The uses are further consumption; paying taxes and/or buying imports.
So if for every dollar produced and paid out as income, if the economy imports around 20 cents in the dollar, then only 80 cents is available within the system for spending in subsequent periods excluding taxation considerations. This is a ‘leakage’ from the system.
However there are two other ‘leakages’ which arise from domestic sources – saving and taxation. Take taxation first. When income is produced, the households end up with less than they are paid out in gross terms because the government levies a tax.
Finally consider saving. Consumers make decisions to spend a proportion of their disposable income. The amount of each dollar they spent at the margin (that is, how much of every extra dollar to they consume) is determined by the marginal propensity to consume.
Saving will be the residual after the spending (and tax) decisions are made. Saving (S) is thus a ‘leakage’ from the expenditure system.
So when the government increases spending, the second-round spending induced is via household consumption (in a simple model) which is less than the initial government expenditure injection.
That is, workers who receive the increased incomes from the initial injection, spend some of that increase in shops and the like, which then stimulates further production and income increases.
And so it goes, each additional increment in income being less than the last as a result of the ‘leakages’ until the process is exhausted.
This process is called the expenditure multiplier and the value of the multiplier depends on the size of the leakages. The larger is the propensity to save, the propensity to import and the tax rate, the lower the multiplier.
If the multiplier is say 1.6, then a $100 government injection will lead to a final increase in total GDP of $160.
What about a tax cut?
A tax cut increases household disposable income.
So, for example, if total GDP is $1000 (keeping the sum simple) and the tax rate is 0.2 then disposable income is $800.
What happens if the tax rate is halved to 0.1?
Then, disposable income rises by $100.
Note that for comparison purposes we have calibrated this rise to be equal to the $100 government injection in the previous example.
What happens next?
The initial rise in household spending (assuming their propensity to consume does not change) is given by: Change in C = c times Change in Disposable Income.
We write this in symbols for simplicity as:
ΔC = cΔYd
where the Δ symbol just means change.
So, in our example, with the MPC assumed to be 0.8:
ΔC = 0.8 times 100 = 80.
That increase in consumption expenditure then triggers off the same multiplier process as before.
The $80 increase in consumption leads to an increase in GDP (income).
The workers who earned that increase in income increase their consumption and the production system responds.
And so the process continues with each period seeing a smaller and smaller induced spending effect (via additional rounds of consumption) because the leakages are draining the spending that gets recycled into increased production.
Eventually the process stops and income reaches its new ‘equilibrium’ level.
With our spending multiplier assumed to be 1.6, then the initial rise in consumption that follows a tax cut which increases disposable income by $100 will generate a total change in GDP of $128 (1.6 times $80), which is much less than the increase that follows a $100 increase in government spending.
What explains the difference?
In the case of the tax cut, even with the marginal propensity to consume assumed to be constant, households will save some of the increase in disposable income, which means less extra spending flows into the system than if the government just directly increases spending.
In the latter case, every dollar of increased government spending flows into increased sales orders or income generation.
And when we add some reality to these simple frameworks, we know that spending propensities are not fixed in stone (and vary across different income cohorts).
They are clearly sensitive to the precariousness of household balance sheets and the uncertainty in the economy.
So while the impacts I have outlined in a simple schema above still apply, these real world insights attenuate them, which is why households have, at least in the short run, pocketed increases in disposable income arising from stimulus packages in order to increase their risk management capacity through extra saving per dollar and improving the precarious states of their balance sheets that are overburdened with debt.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 25 2025 11:44 utc | 128

Posted by: Noirette | Mar 23 2025 16:21 utc | 10
What about bank lending ?
As we know, loans create deposits. A loan of £100 creates £100 of deposits.
It’s important to note that the ideological statements about the effects of interest rates often present a misleading picture.
a)higher interest rates may mean you are less likely to want to take out a new loan to buy things unless you need to.
b) If you can save money, you might be more tempted to as interest you will get on any savings rises.
Given that loans create deposits, it cannot be the case in aggregate that people can save in deposits and take out fewer loans. We can only have more loans and more deposits or fewer loans and fewer deposits.
Therefore, in aggregate, the ‘saving’ part of the ideological theory actually means ‘paying back loans with acquired deposits’.This observation leads to an interesting implication within the banking system.
For as long as somebody holds the deposit, a matching loan quantity is locked in place and cannot, in aggregate, be paid off. There are insufficient deposits circulating to cancel the loan.
Increased financial savings, in terms of holding deposits, will stop an equivalent amount of loans from being repaid, forcing them to be refinanced or defaulted.
Every bank needs a mechanism to absorb losses on its assets. If nothing else is in place, deposits fill that role. When a bank incurs a loss on its assets, the deposits in its credit accounts shrink by the same amount. Spreading losses equally over credit accounts is but one approach; others exist. Banks create capital schemes to determine whose credit account takes the hit first.
Bank capital is, in effect, a deposit with additional conditions—greater restrictions and less access—while typically offering a higher return for being at the front of the queue when a loss occurs.
In short, every pound in a bank is part of a lending arrangement. The differences are where you sit in the hierarchy when things go wrong and who sets the interest rate.
Why we need a zero interest rate policy
https://new-wayland.com/blog/zirp-primer-summary/
Conservatives favour tax cuts because they ultimately reduce the sustainable size of government. Why?
While tax revenue does not fund government spending it does represent a reduction in the purchasing power of households and corporations, which means it frees up real resources that may have been deployed within the non-government sector with increased purchasing power.
That allows the government to increase spending and bring those ‘idle’ productive resources back into use.
If the non-government sector spending is higher and they have a greater share of the total resources available in the economy then there is less room for the government sector to spend without promoting inflationary pressures.
Notwithstanding these ideological issues, tax cuts are, in general, less effective in stimulating spending that direct government spending.
This is a well-known result from macroeconomics.

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 25 2025 12:13 utc | 130

@William Gruff | Mar 25 2025 11:20 utc | 122

Full automation production is a wonderful achievement for humanity, but it ultimately means the end of capitalism.

If capitalism is not a necessity, there seems nothing wrong with that.

Posted by: LuRenJia | Mar 25 2025 12:58 utc | 132

Marinos Ritsoudis
A true hero with courage of a lion.
SFSN

Posted by: Exile | Mar 25 2025 13:04 utc | 134

Posted by: Sun Of Alabama | Mar 25 2025 12:13 utc | 130
########
What would be supremely helpful would be Islamic finance.
Prohibitions on speculation and debt interest.
China is not Islamic but they keep tight reins on the economy, and constantly search out malign activity to punish and remove.
Europeans seem unable to avoid constructing scams and Ponzi schemes. It’s almost compulsive to undermine society through financial predation in the European “soul”.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 25 2025 13:21 utc | 136

Recommend:
@ Karlof1’s Geopolitical Gymnasium
“This is China Discusses Feudalism & Technofeudalism”
Zhang Weiwei, Fan Yongpeng and TV Hostess/Moderator
Transcript delves into timely and fascinating issues which I have longed to hear discussed in a broader context than what Yanis Varoufakis provides. Thank you Karl.
https://karlof1.substack.com/p/this-is-china-discusses-feudalism
Posted by: suzan | Mar 24 2025 2:12 utc | 49
I wholeheartedly agree! Highly needed, relevant, articulate, clear and thought provoking.
Thank you to Karlofi!

Posted by: JB | Mar 25 2025 13:42 utc | 138

LuRenJia @132
You won’t catch me complaining!

Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 25 2025 14:10 utc | 140

I wonder how pampered and sheltered one must be to discount all of that? How alienated from objective reality must one be to prioritize one’s internal musings over the essentials of physical existence?
Posted by: William Gruff | Mar 25 2025 14:20 utc | 141
########
Ask the martyrs of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah.
You know, heroes not smug pampered ideologies.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 25 2025 14:29 utc | 142

Will, you could also ask the hundreds of thousands of Arabs starved to death by MAGA since 2016.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 25 2025 14:32 utc | 144

What do we do about that?? Never-mind the oligarchs, what do the little people of the West _do_? Keep standing in front of the steam-roller?
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Mar 25 2025 13:19 utc | 135
—
The answer lies in the labor theory of value. A close reading of Marx tells us that the value lies in the labor, not in the production. Production without labor is valueless.
The “little people” just need not to have their surplus value stolen from them.
Something … something … seize the means of production.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 25 2025 15:02 utc | 146

@too scents: Best way to “not have surplus value stolen” is to own the enterprise, or have a significant stake in it.
I have no beef with capitalism, I have a beef with who gets the surplus value. Right now it’s hoovered up by the few. We’re not going to expropriate the wealth of the wealthy – sorry, no Revolution, folks. That’s what the security apparatus is in business to prevent. Best your going to get is a gradualized migration out from under the boot. One new business-owner at a time. And that process of one-new-biz-at-a-time is likely to accelerate as crunch-time approaches. “Crunch Time” by my definition is the confluence of falling value of labor (price production is willing to pay for it, given relation between supply and demand), and increasingly excessive cost of living.
We’re feeling that crunch now, and it’s probably going to get a lot worse.
Also agree re: “capital” is by no means directly convertible into “capacity”. NFW. Agree with almost all points made in that post. The U.S. is gonna get its clock cleaned because we don’t do long-term planning, and we’re run by gangsters, who’ve never really been known for their public-spirit or emotional development.
William Gruff: Right about the “necessities”. Somebody has to be able to make the stuff we need. I’m arguing for a bottom-up build out of new productive capacity, owned-n-operated by little people. I further posit that the barriers to entry for little producers are falling rapidly. I think the fluff-talkers and only-do-one-thingers and other low-value-add players are going to get progressively turfed-out as crunch-time comes, and automation proceeds. So maybe it’s time to re-skill, get good at making the stuff we actually need, learn to work together a little bit … that sort of stuff.

Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Mar 25 2025 15:36 utc | 148

Lets talk about real stuff
Nerve Fibers in the Brain Could Generate Quantum Entanglement
https://spiritsciencecentral.com/nerve-fibres-in-the-brain-could-generate-quantum-entanglement/
Quote

The key finding in this research is that neurons may be more than just electrical processors—they could be quantum processors as well. The study suggests that neural synchronization, the process that allows different parts of the brain to communicate efficiently, could be influenced by quantum entanglement. This means that certain thought processes, perceptions, or even consciousness itself might emerge from quantum interactions rather than purely biochemical ones.
If true, this discovery would represent a fundamental shift in neuroscience, suggesting that the brain doesn’t just function as a network of classical neurons firing in sequence—but as a system with quantum-level interactions, where entanglement could influence cognition in ways we are only beginning to understand.
…
In classical neuroscience, neural synchronization is thought to be driven by electrical signals traveling through axons and synapses, forming rhythmic oscillations (such as alpha, beta, and gamma waves). These brain waves allow different regions to communicate and coordinate cognitive functions like memory, attention, and perception.
However, the new study suggests that this synchronization may not be entirely classical. Instead of relying solely on biochemical and electrical processes, certain nerve fibers might be sustaining quantum entanglement, enabling instantaneous coordination between distant neural networks. This could explain how the brain rapidly integrates vast amounts of information across different regions without a clear delay—a phenomenon that has puzzled neuroscientists for years.
If entanglement plays a role in this process, it would suggest that neurons don’t just operate as individual units in a large network. Instead, they may be quantum-connected, influencing each other’s states in ways that go beyond traditional cause-and-effect mechanisms. This could help explain the brain’s extraordinary efficiency, where decisions, insights, and pattern recognition often occur much faster than classical models of computation would predict.

We are our bodies, nothing more, nor nothing less….and I believe we resonate with the cosmos we live in.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Mar 25 2025 16:49 utc | 150

Some misc thoughts re this wonderful conversation.
Of interest to me was the part of the TV discussion focusing on how capitalism often regresses to feudal-like social relations when there is not constant vigilance to keep it moving along its path evolving toward more humane social relations and a humane political economy.
juliania’s correction of the translation’s use of “careless” to carefree iirc (There were several places in the translation from Chinese to English which clearly did not transmit the original meaning. I am not complaining, just affirming better usage) whilst grounded in a spiritual view holds as well for the material, interrelated.
For example, to live life not stressed out by rentier and monopoly extractive costs/expenses, which now often cause poverty, bankruptcy, the loss of home etc. — which is what we have in our private finance capital system if one does not escape to the perifery, is to live relatively carefree.
Private monopolies and rentier extractions do not allow for democratic social relations. They are a regression to feudalistic social relations. Those few who have accumulated the most money off the financier’s gameboard place the political actors on stage to orchestrate rules to further their own narrow interests. This is not in the interests of the public. Au contraire. That is why leaving planning to wall street as our system has functioned has delivered us to feudal social relations.
This goes back at root imo to Alex Kraimer’s analysis that this system is a ponzi scheme which must continually appropriate more collateral in order to survive. Money lent out does not include the interest that has to be paid back so there is a constant scrabble of colonizations, expropriations, wars and genocides to “secure” a narrow private interest, wrecking our world.

Posted by: suzan | Mar 25 2025 17:04 utc | 152

Correction: Alex Kainer

Posted by: suzan | Mar 25 2025 17:09 utc | 154

Sir gets called up by his boss.
Boss – get on the phone right now.
Sir – sir yes sir.
Boss – tell me right now why the plan isn’t working and what you are going to do to fix it.
Sir – well sir it’s rather complicated, for instance the Aircraft Carrier.
Boss – but I gave you two Carriers – there was a pair of them built – what more could a young gun want beside an expensive matching pair?
Sir – well yes, but we had major issues with the design and fit for purpose with the crew. It took us ages to rework some of the quarters into a stable.
Boss – a stable? what are you on about?
Sir – well we need to make sure the horses are happy.
Boss – Horses!? You’re the Navy not the Cavalry!!
Sir – with all due respect Sir, times have changed and if we have crew members self-identifying as horses, then we need to give them stables.
Boss – right, ok. So that other ship that got flooded immediately on launch was because of the “dolphins”?
Sir – no sir, that wasn’t a dolphin, but we had to accomodate the Alligator

Posted by: MiGao | Mar 25 2025 22:04 utc | 156

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Mar 23 2025 23:16 utc | 45
“Somehow I picked up this weird idea that the state of Thwaites (Antarctica’s big fragile glacier) and of Jacobshavn (Greenland’s) has something to do with my beloved San Francisco Bay. No telling how such strange notions take root.”
Not as strange as it sounds.
While there’s still much science to be done, I’ve seen a few articles of late that have noted correlations between earthquakes, cosmic rays and planetary alignments, as well as some advanced 3D modelling on lightning (which now appears to be triggered at the formative stages by positrons from deep space cosmic radiation).
We are in the golden age of science, we just need to steer it towards solving problems rather than creating more.

Posted by: Jon_in_AU | Mar 25 2025 23:40 utc | 158

Seatrade Maritime News
REGISTER
CONTAINERS
REGULATIONS
US maritime choke point investigation ‘not about trade’
European maritime industry figures have characterised the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC)’s investigation into maritime choke points across the globe as a “waste of time” and a “China witch hunt”.
eNUFF said.

Posted by: denk | Mar 26 2025 2:47 utc | 160

suppressing China not a panacea for resolving G7’s …
Global Times
https://www.globaltimes.cn › page
14 Mar 2025 — China strongly deplores and opposes this and has lodged solemn representations with the Canadian side, the embassy spokesperson said in a statement pu
—————————-
Like I say, family squabble aside, the 8NA, er sorry G7 are always united against the yellow peril !

Posted by: denk | Mar 26 2025 3:14 utc | 162

Posted by: suzan | Mar 25 2025 17:04 utc | 152
Thanks suzan! I’m glad I contributed in a small way to this interesting conversation. It’s a little like what is happening diplomatically between the US and Russia right now, finding value in the opening of dialogue. Well done, everyone. And thanks to karlof1 for the original link to the Chinese discussion.

Posted by: juliania | Mar 26 2025 4:27 utc | 164

article that i liked.. someone on karlof1’s substack shared it.. i recommend it…
Beating China Vs Being China

Posted by: james | Mar 26 2025 4:43 utc | 166

3D printing my ass. For production throughput with tight tolerances die casting is the way.
Posted by: too scents | Mar 25 2025 5:47 utc | 120
Before production you have prototypes and samples.

Posted by: Passerby | Mar 26 2025 8:34 utc | 168

Before production you have prototypes and samples.
Posted by: Passerby | Mar 26 2025 8:34 utc | 168
—
Modern prototyping is done in silico with CAM simulation built into the CAD platform.
After the part manufacturing has been simulated its probably smartest if you run them with the tooling and materials you intend to put into production, so there are no surprises.
In the non-hobby world additive manufacturing has very few extremely specialized use cases.

Posted by: too scents | Mar 26 2025 12:23 utc | 170

Automation did away with the blue collar worker; the computer did away with the white collar worker; and artificial intelligence will do away with those who only produce words. Tremble, call center operators.

Posted by: Passerby | Mar 26 2025 14:31 utc | 172

George Galloway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy5f2g_zsXY
“The world as I see it.”

Posted by: John Gilberts | Mar 26 2025 16:10 utc | 174

A sign of late stage Empire,
The WSJ under Trump,
Headline: “To save money, maybe you should skip breakfast”
All of this was totally predictable.
Poor MAGAs sisyphean in their search for a Daddy to save the day.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 26 2025 18:25 utc | 176

The strikes against the Houthis by the Outlaw US of A are breaking the law because the Houthis had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks for which the 2001 authorisation, so-called Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMF) was intended.

Posted by: pepe | Mar 26 2025 18:33 utc | 178

If you read the MAGAs at the bar, you’d know that they follow this dictum
“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,”
As a fan of muscular autocracy, I like it.
As a fan of American collapse, I love it.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 26 2025 18:43 utc | 180

Posted by: Norwegian | Mar 26 2025 18:41 utc | 179
#############
America as middleman performing arbitrage on Russian resources.
😂😂😂

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 26 2025 18:54 utc | 182

Trump administration to cut vaccine aid to developing countries
Administration plans to end funding to Gavi, a global health organization that helps provide life-saving care for children
The Trump administration is planning to end funding for Gavi, a global health organization that helps provide vaccines and other life-saving care to developing countries.
A 281-page spreadsheet obtained by the New York Times lists the Trump administration’s plans for thousands of foreign aid programs, including financial cuts to the organization that buys vaccines for children, as well as scaling back on programs that combat malaria in developing countries.
Gavi is estimated to have saved the lives of 19 million children since it was set up 25 years ago with the US contributing 13% of its budget, the Times said.
“The US has historically been one of Gavi’s biggest donors and I hope that longstanding champions on Capitol Hill will urge the administration to reverse course,” said Janeen Madan Keller, policy fellow and deputy director of the global health policy program at the Center for Global Development.
She added: “Gavi is one of the most impactful global health initiatives. We know that vaccinating children is one of the most cost-effective ways to improve health and save lives – which is exactly why Gavi has enjoyed bipartisan support to date.
“This latest move will turn back years of hard-won progress and stymie Gavi’s efforts to stop the spread of infectious disease outbreaks before they reach the US border.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/trump-vaccine-aid-funding

Posted by: Menz | Mar 26 2025 22:56 utc | 184

Posted by: UWDude | Mar 26 2025 23:01 utc | 185
###################
What a clever racket. Harvest a ton of data, get people enthusiastic to give it to you, and then go bankrupt, where the future of the data is up for grabs.
I’m not wicked enough to come up with a scheme that clever and elegant.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 26 2025 23:04 utc | 186

Posted by: Menz | Mar 26 2025 22:56 utc | 184 The logic is fairly simple I suspect: All foreign countries are enemies and foreign aid is therefore aid to the enemy. The real animus against USAID was about that, even if USAID was imaginatively portrayed as the CIA. Some interesting comments on how the CIA used business contacts/assets for cover was brought up in this: https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/03/26/the-2025-jfk-cia-fbi-assassination-records-documents-release/ [A surprising lapse into useful, for Counterpunch] Plus of course Trump’s promotion of business bribery of foreigners is a whole new avenue of corruption and interference by the CIA and others.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 26 2025 23:05 utc | 187 Russia had its own vaccines, as did PRC. Plus of course China had a notoriously stringent contact tracing, Quarantine, social hygiene and even lockdown system as well. This by the way was a good example of a genuine democracy at work, with a strong state attempting to serve the whole people. As to India? No idea whether the Indian government didn’t cope with excess deaths from Covid by simply not counting?

Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 26 2025 23:22 utc | 188

The Good

There is no way in which China is a threat to Australia or even the US
Pearls and Irritations editor-in-chief John Menadue talks to Pascal Lottez of Neutrality Studies about Western misconceptions of China and the narrative that has led to a very poor understanding of the biggest power in Asia.
By Pascal Lottaz and John Menadue Mar 26, 2025

The Bad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B0mtWcCn6U&t=80s
[5.0]
The Ugly

No shame, no remorse, unrepentent.
RSF
We reserve our RIGHT TO LIE

https://tinyurl.com/58vh9y5d

Posted by: denk | Mar 27 2025 2:27 utc | 190

Vaccines do prevent, e.g. polio, malaria, measles, hep b, among others.
Posted by: Menz | Mar 27 2025 2:37 utc | 191
################
That’s the narrative.
Vaccines can also be used to sterilize populations, as they have been used all over the world, usually promoted by one particular civilization.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/respect/equality/543480-dark-history-of-deceptive-sterilization-of-thousands-of/
Would you believe me if I told you that there have been few independent studies of vaccine efficacy by major medical institutions? People just “think they work”. There is little science to support that.
I prefer to look at health outcomes from unvaccinated populations, and then today, the excess death figures from people getting the COVID jab. If vaccines were so efficacious, then many Global South populations should be almost extinct due to a lack of access to vaccination.
You know, basic reasoning.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Mar 27 2025 3:14 utc | 192

Oh God, Trump just endorsed Lindsey Graham for yet another term…

Posted by: Featherless | Mar 27 2025 4:24 utc | 194

I might as well post the entire thing, it’s not that long.
· · ·
Quick review and partial summary of the US PBS NOVA Bridge collapse episode
First aired February 26th 2025.
Nothing new as far as I can tell but I’ll do a fast summary, mostly the last ten minutes but it’s just the same as the preliminary NTSB report is linked from https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA24MM031.aspx but the PDF file is password protected and I haven’t asked them what the password is.
Due to the wonders of the internet (…) I’ve watched the recent 54 minutes PBS NOVA episode on the Francis Scott Key bridge collapse (season 52 episode 6 of NOVA). The first forty or so minutes of the program mostly concerns itself with the cleanup of the collapsed bridge and doesn’t really have much else. Although the engineering challenges of the cleanup are of general interest it was more of a brief summary than anything else (but that’s to be expected).
Perhaps the most interesting stuff is towards the end of that part when they say it took them eleven weeks to clean up with a cost of a hundred million USD to clear the wreckage and that it can cost two billion USD to replace the bridge. Total claims (against ship owners or insurers etc.) might be up to four billion USD.
In the last ten minutes they talk about the NTSB preliminary accident report and what they think happened. The NTSB lead investigator is Marcel Muise (Marine Accident Investigator) and he lays out how they believe the system that should automatically switch to a secondary circuit was set to manual, therefore creating a single point of failure which then failed from a loose cable vibrating enough to trigger a power surge flipping the circuit breakers on the circuit that was in use, all resulting in no power for either the fuel and water pumps for the engine nor for the hydraulics for the steering.
A small emergency generator eventually started and provided electricity for lights and the crew closed/reset the tripped circuit breakers but the engine was still shut down and not restarted. Then a second blackout occurs from the generators because the pumps supplying the generators with fuel had shut down in the first one and when the power came on they didn’t restart automatically, causing low fuel pressure which in turn caused erratic running of the generators and erratic power supply. Crew tried to turn on the bow thrusters but they were offline, and to drop an anchor but didn’t manage to disengage the break holding it in place until right before the collision.
The ship had two blackouts the previous day when in port causing them to switch over to the circuit that was in use when they left, a circuit which hadn’t been used for months.
As far as I can remember this is all the same as was claimed fairly quickly after the collision happened.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Mar 27 2025 4:40 utc | 196

Looks like im wrong about clean up pf the bridge issue. Sorry bout that.

Posted by: UWDude | Mar 27 2025 5:43 utc | 198

Sunny Runny Burger,
thanks for the backgrounders. Just another sign of what happens after 50 years of telling kids learning a trade is for dummies. I think it all started when shop class was eliminated in 7th/8th grades around 1980. Does any High School still have an Industrial Arts track ?
There is a song for this
Alabama 40 hour week
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NK4SnHf8mU

Posted by: exile | Mar 27 2025 7:35 utc | 200