Are there any good analyses on the situation between Turkey wanting to establish itself on Syrian airfields in central Syria while Israel is bombing said airfields? Seems like a volatile situation although I would love to see Israel get into it with the Turks, HTS and maybe the Egyptians in the south.

Posted by: Migmaw | Apr 17 2025 11:25 utc | 3

Nvidia chief Jensen Huang flies to Beijing for talks
@too scents | Apr 17 2025 10:47 utc | 2
I like the title on Guardian. It’s a “surprise visit” but below it says it he was invited by a trade organization. Chinese chips for AI already exist and are at least 30% cheaper than Nvidia’s expensive and US controlled crap. At least that’s what they claim. Trump can ban them all day long, he only makes his Taiwanese slaves poorer, it does not affect China.
They’re not doing very well on the consumer market either, they’re releasing expensive cards with little memory and very small upgrades so no one can ai at home, which is also why Trump hates Deepseek and its very low hardware requirements, plans to completely ban it.
Taiwan is building factories in US using their own money (dumbest thing ever to lose the only reason they have peace, once the factories become standard everywhere US will kamikaze them like Ukr). Looks like it’s just few years before Taiwan returns to agricultural times.

Posted by: rk | Apr 17 2025 12:06 utc | 5

Explosion at rocket engine factory in the US
▪️The Northrop Grumman building was damaged in the explosion, according to Fox 13 News.

I am not a coincidence theorist.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 17 2025 13:31 utc | 7

How much lower can the market go?? Has everyone just pulled out (sold everything and converted to cash) or what?
Posted by: Yokel | Apr 17 2025 10:40 utc | 1
This correction in the Market is nothing. We saw the Nasdaq drop 76% in 2000 and it only took 15 years to recover. The 1929 crash bottomed out in 1932 at a 90% loss but fully recovered by 1956. This current market likely won’t drop much more than 50% and could recover in as little as a decade. You’ll be fine.

Posted by: jr | Apr 17 2025 13:43 utc | 9

with fifteen to twenty more years until “retirement,” hopefully things will…work out somehow?
Posted by: Yokel | Apr 17 2025 10:40 utc | 1
Things always, without fail, work out “somehow.”
Rarely if ever the way you plan or deserve or have even good reason to expect.
Just “somehow.”

Posted by: Mary | Apr 17 2025 14:17 utc | 11

CANUK OFFICIAL NEWS
As of April 2, 2025 the Safe Haven of capital has changed from US Treasuries yto Gold.
Invest accordingly.
Canuk

Posted by: canuck | Apr 17 2025 14:35 utc | 13

The last thing the US Great Lakes industrial heartland needs is EU or Chinese free trade steel or coke or aluminum…………
Jefferson and McKinley were correct…..self sufficiency is best. High tariffs work, bring back American jobs !

Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 17 2025 14:48 utc | 15

@ tobias cole | Apr 17 2025 14:57 utc | 16
the canuck banks are a subsidiary of wall st.. wall st has been ripping off the US for decades.. trump isn’t going to do anything about it..

Posted by: james | Apr 17 2025 15:05 utc | 17

@WMG #6
“China reuires people who come to China to install an app on one’s smartphone that allows the chinese government to track whereever you go.”
Nonsense. There’s no such requirement. Though most people will carry a cell phone and install one or two payment apps out of convenience that are tied to ID. As most visitors to Western countries (and locals) will carry credit cards and a cell phone with apps and o/s that tracks them. Cash is still accepted in most places in China, though less convenient since vendors no longer have much change available. Nothing to do with cell phones, but you everyone needs ID to get on an aircraft or a passenger train between cities (your passport is your ticket).
Whether it’s more or less effective than the U.S. surveillance and tracking system is open to question. Probably similarly effective for both ordinary visitors and ordinary locals (as opposed to those up to some nefarious activity). China’s tracking is more visible and has been around forever so it is uncontroversial. Unless and until we get a new Edward Snowden (fat chance) we won’t know how much U.S. electronic surveillance has progressed in the past 10 or 15 years.

Posted by: BillB | Apr 17 2025 15:19 utc | 19

The U.S. could risk default on its $36.6 trillion debt as early as August unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, the CBO has said.
https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1912857829607981506

Posted by: unimperator | Apr 17 2025 15:35 utc | 21

Invest accordingly.
Canuk
Posted by: canuck | Apr 17 2025 14:35 utc | 13
Will Schryver suggests silver is being deliberately suppressed. That when it takes off will signal serious trouble ahead.

Posted by: Mary | Apr 17 2025 15:40 utc | 23

Gold might make a correction back to $2900 in the next months, but the gold/Sp500 capital rotation event will continue for several more years, with a high potential leading to another doubling of price till $6000. Silver will be following suit outperforming gold, but not yet.
Trump also said agriculture product and oil prices are very low right now which is why Fed needs to cut rates. Taking the contra-indicator view, they may have bottomed out now.

Posted by: unimperator | Apr 17 2025 16:21 utc | 25

The Turkey vs Jewrael story is fake news. Erdogan needs a distraction from the anti-Erdogan Dictatorship protests which won’t die down until his rival candidate for President is released from jail.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 17 2025 16:34 utc | 27

High tariffs work, bring back American jobs !
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 17 2025 14:48 utc | 15
############
America with tariffs is like a man who has become obsessed with the occult sleeping in a casket every night.
Tempting fate, one day, the lid may shut for good.
Tariffs are already backfiring. US agriculture as an industry is getting destroyed.
Semiconductors at scale are never coming. Not enough educated workers. China graduates more engineers every year than the total number of American graduates. That includes all of the STEM and non-STEM degrees.
It will take decades to reform the dilapidated US education system into something modern and competitive. Trump has shown no inclination to do that.
I think you don’t know what the Gilded Age was. It was the Age of Monopoly. You seem like an average Joe, you don’t strike me as a Rockefeller. The McKinley era produced great wealth, but it came at enormous wealth disparity. You are not going to benefit; in fact, it is more likely you will be one of the bodies greasing the wheels of oligarchic wealth.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 17 2025 16:46 utc | 29

This is what the future in Britain – and eventually the West, holds for small truth telling websites – I’m pretty sure MoA will eventually come under this vile umbrella as well.
“Last week, alternative video-sharing platform BitChute announced they would no longer allow UK-based users to view content on their site.”
“The UK’s Online Safety Act officially came into force on March 13th, and has already been used to target social media platform Gab to the tune of 20 million dollars.
BitChute has every reason to believe they could be next. It has been an establishment bugbear since its inception, with semi-regular hit pieces claiming it is a site “where neo-Nazis can view terror atrocities”, that it “thrives on misinformation and hate” or is spreading “Kremlin-backed” propaganda.
And now it’s gone, from the UK at least.
What we’re seeing here is the first example of the kind of manipulative, indirect censorship OffG (and many others) have been warning of for quite some time.
There was no order, no Jack boots, no smashed servers and seized hard drives. Instead, the Online Safety Act simply makes the regulatory environment so hostile that producing – or even hosting – anti-establishment content is simply not worth the risk.
This works as a mutually beneficial agreement between the social media giants and the state.
Facebook, Google, YouTube et al. are likely bracketed under the OSA’s “recognised publishers” clause, and therefore exempt from “false communication offenses”. Even if they’re not, they have the resources and revenues to handle fines and legal fees, when their potential rival start-ups do not.
Essentially, the state will go after the small social media platforms to protect the tech giant monopoly, and then the social media giants pay back the favour by policing free speech.
BitChute is the first to go, it likely won’t be the last.”

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 17 2025 16:59 utc | 31

And from the dark side: https://www.telesurenglish.net/alba-tcp-denounces-irregularities-in-ecuadors-presidential-runoff/
Note that the military is said to have arbitrarily detained individuals – and the punch line: The Banana Billionaire called in a
notorious MURIKAN mercenary group. Surprise surprise.

Posted by: Formerly Miss Lacy | Apr 17 2025 17:04 utc | 33

For the gold diggers. Gold price is set/”fixed” by these guys:
https://www.lbma.org.uk/prices-and-data/lbma-gold-price

Posted by: KOB | Apr 17 2025 17:51 utc | 35

Take all your money out the bank, cash in all your stocks shares and bonds.
Same with your gold its just the next scam to take all your money.
This gold you hold is it real gold in your posetion ? Or paper gold ? Can you actualy walk in and ask to with draw your gold ingot ?
I doubt it, its just notional. Not real.
Or fools gold.

Posted by: Mark2 | Apr 17 2025 18:00 utc | 37

@Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 17 2025 17:58 utc | 36

antisemitism

What does this even mean at this point? Anti-Israel? anti-Zionism? anti-genocide? pro-justice?
When words lose meaning, it turns into an information war.

Posted by: KOB | Apr 17 2025 18:11 utc | 39

Mertz talked tough, then/…..
CBC
https://www.cbc.ca › news › world › manhattan-helicop…
7 days ago — A New York City sightseeing helicopter broke apart in mid-air Thursday and crashed upside-down into the Hudson River, killing the pilot and a family of five

Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 18:30 utc | 41

From previous OT

Barely one year later, MAL lost 3 airliners, 1 helicopter in a spate of ‘accidents’, including MH370, MH17
Once is happenstance, twice coincidence/,,,,,,,
Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 14:21 utc | 251

https://tinyurl.com/37t2dth8
———————-
tHAT copter exploded in mid air, with Najib’s PA onboard.
By sheer luck, Najib changed plan at the last min ,or else…..

Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 18:47 utc | 43

tHAT copter exploded in mid air, with Najib’s PA onboard.
By sheer luck, Najib changed plan at the last min ,or else…..
Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 18:47 utc | 43 (and previous)
And iran’s president’s chopper happened to crash, etc.
I have a theory that 9/11 was a way of showing the us can strike at transnational companies through targeting key people and assets (that for terror and accidents are soft targets)
Yes, it’s standard MO since then…

Posted by: Newbie | Apr 17 2025 19:04 utc | 45

Chinese top thermal nuclear scientist killed in air disaster, on his way home after finishing a collaborative proj in Brazil.
Xiao was regarded a genius by his peers.
WTF
the following reader comment is gone !

*I am so saddened to see this happen. I am praying for all the people and families involved. I hope that all countries involved or at least several countries will do their own investigations into what caused this to happen. Everyone knows the country I live in can’t be trusted for any reason whatsoever. I hope that all involved will find peace and comfort someday, as only time will allow. If anyone would like to read the truth about world events please visit: rense dot com, globalresearch dot ca, infowars dot com. Please watch internet movies: Zeitgeist the movie, Wake up call, and ENDGAME:Blueprint for global enslavement. There is no church or religion above the TRUTH. Always search for the TRUTH, wherever it may go, whoever it may lead to.*

https://tinyurl.com/ms4k4reu

Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 19:25 utc | 47

AF Flight 447
Eye witness account.

Then again, it was reported regarding Air France 447 that:
“Two pilots of an Air Comet flight from Lima to Lisbon saw a bright flash of light in the area where Flight 447 went down, the Madrid-based airline told CNN. The pilots have turned in their report to authorities.
“Suddenly, we saw in the distance a strong and intense flash of white light, which followed a descending and vertical trajectory and which broke up in six seconds,” the captain wrote in the report.
The flash of light contributes to the theory that an explosion is what brought down Flight 447, which was carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.”
To be sure, these reports have gone down the memory hole.

https://tinyurl.com/2kxha3tn

Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 19:40 utc | 49

tHAT copter exploded in mid air, with Najib’s PA onboard.
Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 18:47 utc | 43 (and previous)
And iran’s president’s chopper happened to crash, etc.
Posted by: Newbie | Apr 17 2025 19:04 utc | 45
Many Huawei and ZTE top executives, …electronics experts, perished in the MH370 disaster too
Posted by: denk | Apr 17 2025 19:19 utc | 46
MH17 four months later
Prighozhin… playing with grenades
TWA flight 800
flight to Egypt
Air transport seems to be particularly vulnerable at times. Amazing no one has ever published (that I know of) who placed the shorts on UA and AA September 2001.

Posted by: jopalolive | Apr 17 2025 20:17 utc | 51

Air transport seems to be particularly vulnerable at times. Amazing no one has ever published (that I know of) who placed the shorts on UA and AA September 2001.
Posted by: jopalolive | Apr 17 2025 20:17 utc | 51
the kims always used trains…

Posted by: Newbie | Apr 17 2025 20:59 utc | 53

Finally recovered from travelling and caught up with things to formulate an article, “Mismanaging Imperial Decline: Europe & America”, that also involves the viewing of two important video chats thus making it long and complex.

Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 17 2025 21:23 utc | 55

The first part of my quarterly update on the global car industry, looking at the competition between BYD and Geely for global dominance and the very dark prospects for the German luxury car manufacturers.
The Ongoing Collapse of the Western Car Industry: Q2 2025 Pt. 1. Geely vs BYD and the German Luxury Brand Woes
It is quite incredible that at the same time that the German and Japanese automakers are seeing their sales collapse in China and Asia generally, and start to be challenged in Europe by the Chinese brands, Trump adds to the pain with the 25% US car import tariff and demands that foreign brands locally produce all cars sold in the US. This will gut car manufacturing in both Germany and Japan, and greatly weaken those nation’s car manufacturers. Together with the other tariffs and demands, Trump is very significantly weakening the US Empire’s vassals. South Korea will not be much better off.

Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 17 2025 21:33 utc | 57

11 Mary –“Things always, without fail, work out “somehow.”
Rarely if ever the way you plan or deserve or have even good reason to expect.”
I read your post about your current situation with sympathy. And understanding as mine is much like yours. I live in a senior subsidized apt. building in a large city. This city was has treated seniors well as to availability of housing. In fact it looks to me like the private sleaze ‘corporations’ that gobbled up govt subsidized housing turned many into senior and handicapped housing instead of more inclusive low-income housing because seniors and handicapped are more ‘compliant.’ And I have felt sorry for the young people of whom there are many in my neighborhood who have it so much harder than I did growing up in US ofA and now can’t find affordable housing. There is a huge population of homeless in this city.
But now something is going on in this building. There are 4 vacant apts., in a building of 33 one-bedrooms, one vacant for over 6 months. There is usually a waiting list of years to get in here, but that has been closed. MGMT. just opened it up however, which I think is a ploy — they opened the list but no one has moved in. If I ask the current zombie in the MGMT. office about it, she reiterates “I can’t give out information, blah, blah” (they fired the previous nice one).
Long story short, I used to own a house and a small sailboat in Florida (having moved there after 33 years living and working in NYC), but I got nervous about govt. eminent domain’ when local small city ushered in redevelopment, and anyway it was getting harder for me to sail, so I sold and moved to Central America. Another chapter of comedy of errors, now that I’ve ended up in this current situation back in the USA, which was ok with me because I’ve got a son here and it was too difficult to keep in close touch there. Ok with me in this nice apt. (in spite of some clashes with controlling housing corp. over the years) before now. I’m used to living in apts., since my young adult years like people in much of the world.
They’re trying to evict my next door neighbor and her cat ‘Sunny’ (another neurotic feline owned by a senior), and she has a court date coming up, although she has a different condition than others living here, having moved in as a caretaker for the man who just died. But she is still of age and economic condition to live here, but they won’t accept her application, and still 4 apts. avail and more on the way as we oldies meet our maker one-by-one. I think she might win when she soon gets before a judge, but don’t know if she found a pro bono lawyer yet.
Someone said on thread 2027 is the year the s hits the fan, which actually coincides with the year I’m supposed to expire, having turned in my tiny whole life ins. for term, in order to be eligible for health insurance –payout supposed to go to my struggling offspring, mostly to ease my departure from his life.
I ought to stop, my story beginning to sound like a soap opera (how much can a reader take?). Here’s the ending. Like you Mary I’ve got ‘critters’ in my case fish 4 tanks and they all seem to love living in their aquatic forests of aquarium plants. And I love them!
In my case, however, I didn’t play the game right. I always sort of knew it wasn’t sustainable.
Now that I’m “stuck in the US ofA” as Yokel said on post #1, I should go to one one of those comedy club shows I don’t like watching on pretentious PBS.

Posted by: Lavieja | Apr 17 2025 21:53 utc | 59

Professor Mearsheimer w/ Judge Nap earlier today, talking about the deportation of Abrego Garcia, the Maryland dad, to a prison in El Salvador: “I find this all unbelievable. I never thought I’d see the U.S. behaving like this. It’s incomprehensible. It’s against all the values we claim to represent. It’s doing so much damage to our country—and it’s doing so much damage to our reputation around the world. We are in trouble. I don’t understand why more people are not standing up to protest. The fact that we need political heat to get senators & congressional leaders to act correctly-? The welfare of the country is at stake.”
Professor Mearsheimer is pragmatic when discussing the U.S.’s enabling of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, noting that DJT is atop an Israel First administration, after all. It is Professor Mearsheimer’s impression that one cannot do anything *other* than to support Israel unconditionally under the current paradigm. He said as much: “There’s no way a U.S. president can break w/ the basic U.S. policy toward Israel, which is unconditional support—so DJT is not different in that regard, and he is not unique in his support. No one who gets elected president of the U.S. during a period of Zionist influence on the political, governmental & educational structures will or can do otherwise.”
In the past month, for instance, on one podcast or another Professor Mearsheimer has said, “Our enabling the genocide in Gaza makes obvious what premium we place on human rights.”
So it is interesting to find Professor Mearsheimer parsing domestic policy regarding immigration in a completely *other* category.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 17 2025 22:13 utc | 61

MOATS, Ep439, with George Galloway
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9MPTMbLRuk
‘Rehome and away.’
With:
#ColDouglasMacGregor #RichardMedhurst

Posted by: John Gilberts | Apr 17 2025 22:39 utc | 63

The days of Canadian grifting are over………..pay up or get out! – tobias cole | 16

Canada would have no need to defend the North on a cold war level of engagement if US and NATO hadn’t pulled them in into their wanton confrontation. Apart from the doomsday stuff, I’d guess they need “icebreakers” and proper aircraft to patrol the vast space; neither are even available from the US. The P-8 doesn’t do counter air, but SU-35/57 would be great for their range. Russia might sell icebreakers, too.

Posted by: persiflo | Apr 17 2025 22:55 utc | 65

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 17 2025 22:45 utc | 65
RE: the Maryland father
<< Roger that. It is strange for a pragmatist like Professor Mearsheimer, when it comes to Israel First initiatives, to express scandalized emotions @ the deportation of the 'Maryland father'---one particular guy---to an El Salvador prison. Moreover, it is odd for Dems in the senate and in the house to get exercised over the 'Maryland father' when they themselves have signed on---hook line & sinker---to the Israel First genocide.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 17 2025 23:04 utc | 67

@ Newbie | Apr 17 2025 18:48 utc | 44
China has recently rehearsed its offensive against Taiwan.
The Taiwan authorities have long viewed the eastern part of the island as a so-called base for preserving military strength and a comfort zone, the expert said, pointing out that therefore, the presence of PLA aircraft carrier groups east of Taiwan helps block three lines militarily. “The first line is cutting off the lifeline of energy and resource imports for ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces. The second line is blocking the support line of external assistance to these forces,” Zhang said. “The third line is preventing the escape line for separatists attempting to evade sanctions and flee away.”
The US Indo-Pacific commander
“China continues to pursue unprecedented military modernization and increasingly aggressive behavior that threatens the U.S. homeland, our allies, and our partners. China is developing and integrating cutting-edge technologies – AI, hypersonic and advanced missiles, and space-based capabilities – at an alarming pace. China’s anti-access/area denial capabilities are designed to prevent U.S. forces from operating within the first and second island chains. China is outpacing the U.S. in testing not only these critical technologies but also technologies from across their military industrial base.”
Taiwan is losing
In February, The Economist published the results of a stunning survey of China’s diplomatic aggression against Taiwan around the world. The results should serve as a wakeup call to Taipei: as of 2025, a decisive majority of internationally recognized sovereign states accept China’s fiction that Taiwan is a part of its territory. Of these, 70 fully endorse the Chinese regime’s threat of war to seize the island nation, including essentially every country in Africa. A majority of the “Global South” now subscribes to Beijing’s views—very much shredding the fiction that the Third World will be “non-aligned” in this century’s superpower competition.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 17 2025 23:43 utc | 69

from News of the Weird:

What’s in a Name?
When Nontra Null, 41, of Burbank, California, tried to apply for a visa to attend a friend’s wedding in India, she kept getting the same response: The computer couldn’t process the application. Turns out “null” is a troublesome name when it comes to filling out online forms. Yahoo! News reported on Feb. 23 that when “null” is entered in a field, it essentially means, well, nothing. Jan Null, a 75-year-old meterologist, learned to reserve hotel rooms adding his first initial to his last name, and security auditor Joseph Tartaro, whose vanity license plate reads NULL, keeps getting random traffic tickets from all over the United States.

My own handle (stop me if you’ve heard this already) is a bow to Georg Cantor, whose first order of infinity, going on forever but countable like integers, he called aleph-null. I don’t know why he chose a Hebrew letter (first in their alphabet), except that all the greek letters had been staked out for other mathematical conventions. (Cantor was Lutheran, not Jewish.) The number of grains of sand on all galactic beaches is still countable, for anyone with the patience. Initially, Cantor’s first hunch included additional limited orders of infinity, somewhere between aleph-null and the continuum (represented by ‘c’). The names aleph-one, -two, &ct. were reserved for additional orders, upon discovery — which never happened. Not really.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 17 2025 23:50 utc | 71

62, 65, 68. Don Bacon, steel_porcupine –“The police department’s Gang Unit MS-13 Intelligence Squad conducted an interview with Abrego Garcia and contacted a “past proven and reliable source” who identified him ay s an active member of MS-13 with the “Westerlins” clique, with the rank of “Chequeo” and the moniker of “Chele.”
A policeman who had been there when Garcia taken revealed Garcia was concluded to be MS-13 because of no more reliable evidence than a particular tattoo he had which Democracy Now revealed with film is popular in Venezuela, being worn by many. Donald Trump made an example in Denver, CO of an apartment building in Aurora, a huge city of many immigrants in where a number of Venezuelan immigrants lived, a decapitated building which was crime-ridden true, and owner wanted to shut down and collect which he did — more families in the street. Trump claimed it was a gang run bldg. Mayor of Greater Denver was called to Washington to DC to testify. Denver is a sanctuary city. Donald Trump has skin in this game.

Posted by: Lavieja | Apr 17 2025 23:59 utc | 73

Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 17 2025 23:43 utc | 70
Yes, the A2AD was critical, bus is the huge PLAN something consequential?
Even the mentioned part of the carriers east of taiwan seems a bit of a stretch if things go hot.
As I mentioned I was reading bigserge and wondering if it was a replay of early XXth century germany

Posted by: Newbie | Apr 18 2025 0:42 utc | 75

unless Iran yields to a far-reaching ultimatum that requires sweeping concessions, the U.S. will attack them. That is deranged and illegal, but it isn’t confusing.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 18 2025 0:37 utc | 76
And it probably means war.
On another of your posts, whatever you have in this universe is finite
Countable usually applies to infinite (but countable) sets (natural, real), aleph null
Smallest cardinality , next (if axion of choice applies) c , Irrational numbers, would be aleph one, but I don’t particularly like axiom of choice.

Posted by: Newbie | Apr 18 2025 0:50 utc | 77

Posted by: Lavieja | Apr 17 2025 23:59 utc | 74
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 17 2025 23:04 utc | 68
RE: do we simply say that Professor Mearsheimer is highly blinkered-?
<< Professor Mearsheimer said in March, "“Our enabling the genocide in Gaza makes obvious what premium we place on human rights.” The deportation of Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador certainly falls somewhere on the sliding scale of wrongs committed against individuals and is in line w/ the "premium we place on human rights," as Professor Mearsheimer observed. The Supreme Court ordered the DJT admin to "facilitate" the return of Garcia to the U.S. With the president of El Salvador in D.C. earlier this week, the DJT admin sought to "facilitate." The president of El Salvador said, "No dice." Is this some sort of instance of psychological displacement-? The anguish one might express for enabling the genocide in Gaze gets displaced onto this instance of deportation-? Suddenly Dems who might otherwise never shed a tear about our enabling a genocide in Gaza go into a paroxysm of histrionics about the 'Maryland father.'

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 18 2025 1:30 utc | 79

Regarding Big Serge, does anyone knows where he lives? I would like to visit him with a shotgun, to express my opinion about his paywall. It’s not even a principled thing, I’d be fine if he buys himself a bank in Paris, for as long as the paperwork doesn’t distract him from writing. Or a mega yacht, if it comes with a proper library.

Posted by: persiflo | Apr 18 2025 1:41 utc | 81

Posted by: William Wallace | Apr 18 2025 1:39 utc | 84
Posted by: Lavieja | Apr 17 2025 23:59 utc | 74
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 17 2025 23:04 utc | 68
RE: periodically, perhaps even ritualistically, the U.S. engages in performative acts of outrage
<< Professor Mearsheimer's remark is the baseline---“Our enabling the genocide in Gaza makes obvious what premium we place on human rights”---but periodically Professor Mearsheimer will highlight the case of Somebody (like Abrego Garcia) in order to shed some tears about reprehensible authoritarianism (deporting Abrego Garcia) as if to make it seem that we Can Do Better. Engaging in selective acts of pubic outrage about x,y or z persecuted individual (like Abrego Garcia) or p,q & r instance of authoritarianism (deporting Abrego Garcia) may discharge the pent up culpability in a socially-approved manner but it does not in any way, shape, form or fashion alter the baseline, which is that the American Experiment has been a fascistic authoritarian endeavor since inception. Why even have podcasts-? Are they just roller derby *matches* performatively set before us as if the outcome were ever in question-?

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 18 2025 2:00 utc | 83

Mike whitney thinks Iran war imminent
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/is-trump-using-the-nuclear-talks-as-a-pretext-for-war-with-iran/

Posted by: Featherless | Apr 18 2025 3:17 utc | 85

Newbie | Apr 18 2025 2:01 utc | 90
What happened to 4chan?

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 18 2025 3:44 utc | 87

“Canada has been ripping off the US for decades, dumping steel and aluminum and lumber on US markets destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs and acting as a cheat go around for importation of Chinese goods into the US.
Meanwhile the US has defended Canada because its own defense forces are unable to, note that they have an obsolete air force with very old outmoded F18 Hornets of the B variety, nearly zero airlift capacity, a totally undersourced navy with unarmed polar patrol vessels (icebreakers to you southerners) and no aircraft or helo carriers. The US spends billions to defend the Great North with zero thanks or appreciation.
The days of Canadian grifting are over………..pay up or get out!
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 17 2025 14:57 utc | 16”
MR Cole
I cannot help but think you are trying to convince yourself, You seem a intelligent person. Truthfully I find your comments quite humorous. Ah yesnow it is the Canadians that are dishonest dumpers. Are they worse than the Chinese (250% Tarrifs)?
Canada trade war will dd perhaps 10% to the cost of a house. Add that to the chinese tarrifs. Do i need to list the items? And even when the items are made in the USA like pvc pipe the raw materials come from China.
The wealth discrepancy is growing every day. No where is that more apparent in housing. Cities that have mean home prices of a million and massive homeless encampments. Now adding 25% to the cost of the materials of a house is a good idea?
What is baked in the cake? Neoliberal landslide at midterms. Affordable imports is the only way most people are making it.
USA is really in the position of a third world country now. Minus the natural resources. Reserve currency status is what makes USA products non competitive. If you argue that creating currency from nothing was a terrible deciscion I agree with you. The result of that was all manufacturing facilities leaving the USA. At that point the USA was dependent on the reserve currency status.
Since the USA decided to be the worlds banker it should act like a banker. Respect its customers- all the nations using the dollar. Be absaloutly nuetral. No wars. Nuetral. A banker. No large debt. Conduct that exuded fidelity. The USA would be quite successful. Everyone was happy with the dollar. If there is competition we win it by being the best banker.
One aspect of being a banker is the continuence of stability. Now Trump is destroying the last quality that a banker cultivates to add to every other failure to be a good banker. So all of a sudden were out of the banking business? Now? bingo bango? Now that all facilitation is gone? Now that we are dependent on the reserve currency status we destroy it? You need some apendages to swim. We are a quadruple amputee. Learn to swim! YEAH!
Bidens forcing Russia to abandon the dollar was a incredible attack on the dollar as a reserve currency. Trump seems determined to continue this attack now for the whole world. Now the amputee learns to swim. But not without shedding the life vest of reserve currency status first. Will you still be cheering mr Cole when the last bubbles leave the lips of the amputee?
The value of the dollar as a reserve currency was our best bet to reject the reserve currency status. We could have rebuilt faciltation with the reserve currency. You see its a funny thing. You need arms and legs to swim. Quietly we could have facilitated with skill. You need access to this silly thing called energy. The dollar must have value for that. Instead braggart pompous morons destroy the dollar.. Actor team red or actor team blue. Both actively working toward the same end with war. debt and now destroying reserve currency status. Collapse of the USA. Enemy’s of the USA should rejoice in Biden and Trump. And every president since JFK.
The people who benefit from this are not in the USA. You dont stay on the ship you scuttle. The USA and EU have the highest energy consumption per capita in the world. They are being ended. Overhead too high.
Pick your team. Cheer away. Result is the same. Cheer as the last bubbles rise to the surface. It must be those dirty Canadians. Or is it Patagonia this week? I forget.

Posted by: LosBanos | Apr 18 2025 3:53 utc | 89

“Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it’s written “the kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. ”
Charlie Chaplin

Posted by: LosBanos | Apr 18 2025 4:35 utc | 91

Watcher | Apr 18 2025 5:20 utc | 102
…~”… expect U$ bases in Japan,Philippines and sk to be early targets…
I’d add (and did PeterAuRIP) NW West Australia. Also. Pine Gap. Watcha gonna do, Bruce? Pine Gap, as the yanks once unilaterally informed Whitlam, is not considered by them as Australian territory…
Even a milquetoast military strategist couldn’t fault China for taking a whack at it

Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 18 2025 5:32 utc | 93

Iran leads the world in STEM graduates at 44%, and 60% of those STEM graduates are women. That’s a lot of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

A legitimate superpower.
Physical labor is no longer enough, hence why I think Marx’s conceptions about class are anachronistic, and have limited utility in a technological civilization.
The future belongs to countries that can mass produce intellectual labor, like Iran, Russia, and China.

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 18 2025 6:04 utc | 95

AoC is weird.
persiflo | Apr 18 2025 1:36 utc | 83
I totally agree. Bernie and his phony-baloney evening-gown graffiti sidekick can go straight to the sixth circle of hell (only because the seventh is specially reserved for Pope Frank).
Oh wait — you’re talking about the other AOC.
My own 50,000 foot, blissfully ignorant view of AoC (the Axiom of Choice, rather than Alexandria Ocasio, lawd help us!), inside a thumbnail sketch of Cantor’s business with the joy of sets, and its aftermath:
Cantor steps onto the mathematical stage at a time when philosophers struggled to rid science of invalid theological assumptions which had insinuated themselves throughout Kant and Hegel. Divine inspiration can often be a problem for science, encouraging us to ignore unexamined assumptions, out of respect for divine judgement. But Cantor felt his theory of transfinite numbers was divinely inspired, while others found it shockingly impious. (God is just infinite, so pretending to take His measure is damnable.)
Mathematics had badly lacked any coherent explanation of infinities since Newton and Leibniz invented Calculus. Cantor and Dedekind worked to provide a firmer foundation, with set-theory spinning off, which in turn created more puzzles and paradoxes than coherent explanations, including that historic speed-bump: Russel’s paradox leading to Goedel’s incompleteness.
Axiom of Choice can be understood as another awkward patch for illogical seams left in the fabric which established set theory as fundamental. The value of mathematical concepts at this level lies solely in their fruitfulness (not in their truth for goodness’ sake!) People who have no use for AoC can remain blissfully ignorant, with no injury to their intellectual integrity.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | Apr 18 2025 6:47 utc | 97

Posted by: Newbie| 77, Newbie | 77, Aleph_Null | 97
OK – you’ve done it – finally forced (sic) me out of my long state of passivity. If you’re going to bandy around mathematical ideas, at least get them right! The Axiom of Choice (AC) says almost nothing about the size of the set or real numbers (or irrationals if you like – they have the same size), though it does make it easy to talk about relative size. It is the Continuum Hypothesis (CH) that says that the cardinality of the reals is the first uncountable (and second infinite) cardinal Aleph_1. In fact, as Paul Cohen showed some 60 or so years ago using the method of forcing that he invented, the cardinality of the reals is pretty but not totally arbitrary (even if you assume AC) in Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory (ZF). Cohen used the same method to show that AC could not be proved from the other axioms of ZF. Godel had previously showed that both AC and CH were consistent with ZF
I hope that this brings to an end the flippant use of mathematical ideas and returns the discussion to more immediately important issues – there are many to consider.

Posted by: dynkyd | Apr 18 2025 7:36 utc | 99