Hamburger@3:
 
“It will be interesting to see how long India can hold out.”
 
Indeed. Modi’s recent full-throated endorsement of Zionist USrael will not easily be forgotten either.

Posted by: John Gilberts | Jul 24 2026 13:22 utc | 4

I think there will eventually be no bid for Treasuries. Inflation is going to rocket higher.
 
The cause: federal debt spinning out of control. $40 trillion, $118k for every U.S. citizen.
 
The government spends far more than it collects, and it’s structural: aging population, growing healthcare costs, massive interest payments.
 
Servicing the debt already costs over $1 trillion a year, and it will keep expanding.
 
The bid for bonds will stop. You’re already seeing rates rise. Countries will demand higher yields to buy Treasuries because the risk of default grows every year.
 
The government will try to force rates down by having the Fed print money and buy bonds.
 
That just accelerates inflation.
 
We’re in a death spiral. Slow death by a thousand cuts, until we hit an artery.
 
Then blood pours out. Rates skyrocket.
 
The financial system breaks. And we hyperinflate.

 
https://x.com/leevalueroach/status/2080622218418016380

Posted by: unimperator | Jul 24 2026 14:04 utc | 6

🔴 BRACE YOURSELF! Countries To COLLAPSE At WARP SPEED?! | Alasdair Macleod & Simon Hunt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvtzk6OVNy4

Posted by: unimperator | Jul 24 2026 14:08 utc | 8

And we hyperinflate.
 
Posted by: unimperator | Jul 24 2026 14:04 utc | 6
 
—
 
I just spent $75 for 3kg of coffee.  Outpacing the cost of a case of wine.
 

Posted by: too scents | Jul 24 2026 14:18 utc | 10

I just spent $75 for 3kg of coffee.  Outpacing the cost of a case of wine. 
Posted by: too scents

they all laughed 9 months ago when I laid in ~18 months supply of coffee beans ( at discount prices BTW) 

Posted by: Exile | Jul 24 2026 14:35 utc | 12

Where is a good site to get up to the minute news other than Twitter? I heard Telegram is good,but are they being monitored by the US for info on citizens who subscribe to it ?

Posted by: octavian61 | Jul 24 2026 14:44 utc | 14

Sounds just like what the money psychos have been doing to us for many, many generations. Since long before this was written.
 
This must be the last generation of this evil.
 
 
—–
 
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
 
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
 
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
 
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
 
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
 
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
 
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
 
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
 
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
 
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
 
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
 
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
 
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
 
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
 
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
 
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
 
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
 
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
 
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
 
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its
 
Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
 
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
 
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
 
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
 
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
 
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
 
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
 
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers  “

Posted by: GreatLakesObserver | Jul 24 2026 15:01 utc | 16

@Melaleuca | Jul 24 2026 14:06 utc | 7
Yeah, they do an awfull lot of magents at Cern to prove something that sounds in German like somebody who drank too much. Which then in turn is proof for sour cream. James Joyce appropriated.
Well, they did proof the Higgs, but to no avail. Twas predicted…
Now they wanna do some more magnets, Higgs 2.0?
We physicists are fucked, like the rest of “da science”

Posted by: steiniplatte | Jul 24 2026 15:13 utc | 18

Hamburger #3:  “The absolute tenacity of Rome is being taught to every US strategist among the earliest lectures they receive. Rome lost many battles, stared into the abyss several times, but never gave in or even compromised.”
 
True … until of course Rome destroyed itself … it took several centuries, I grant you, but over expansion and militarization destroyed the native greatness of Rome destroying it eventually. So if US is following the same model … 

Posted by: Caliman | Jul 24 2026 15:30 utc | 20

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 24 2026 14:06 utc | 7
 
Magnets cannot Magnates make.   
 
Not without moar educated people, socialised costs, externalised environmental destruction costs and privatized profits.
 
IOW  moar “Private-Public Partnerships” that drove us to ruin over the past 40 years, producing illiteracy, ill health, surveillance and magnates, but no magnets.
 
Next round, techy 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Posted by: suzan | Jul 24 2026 16:35 utc | 22

https://eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/war-kavanagh/
 
Good analytical take on evaluation of warfar

Posted by: Polli | Jul 24 2026 16:44 utc | 24

The absolute tenacity of Rome is being taught to every US strategist among the earliest lectures they receive

this theory stems from Edward Luttwaks throughly discredited book The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire.  Luttwak is a corrupt genocidal Epstein Class member. Who by the way is 1/3 owner of a ~40,000 acre Ranch in Bolivia. Yeah – imagine what satanic depravity goes on there.
 
full disclosure – I studied under Luttwak for 5 Semesters in the late 1970s, Alwsys earned As. Know him very well. 

Posted by: Exile | Jul 24 2026 17:25 utc | 26

Mercouris – temporarily ill but working on! – puts together the indications that the Anchorage agreement (whatever that was) is dead.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R236qoRs48s
 
It was obvious after Istanbul that the only terms the Russians were interested in from the West were the terms of surrender.  If possible, dressed up with whatever made the PR look good for the Americans:  the Russians were never interested in rubbing Biden’s nose in it and later were prepared to give Trump whatever rope he needed.  But surrender one way or another  – they weren’t that bothered exactly how –  to the Russian conditions of demilitarisation and denazification was always the bottom line. 
 
Any extras, “New European Security Architecture” or a “reset” with the Americans, would have  been nice to haves, but on that bottom line they were never going to budge.  We can dispute those Russian terms, or say as some do that they were bogus, but whatever.  Those were the terms set out by the Russians in February ’22 and they’ve remained unaltered since.  Demilitarisation and denazification or no deal.
 
I used to quote Borrell’s statement, a statement that was in truth the European response to that.  “This war will be decided on the battlefield.”  Though I got that wrong.  What Borrell actually said was “This war will be won on the battlefield.”  That’s shown in a screenshot on an anti-Russian site:-
 
https://www.stopfake.org/en/fake-borrell-for-resolving-conflict-in-ukraine-militarily/
 
Borrell’s statement is dated 9th April 2022.  At the same time Borrell also announced the stepping up of sanctions.   This was at a time when the EU was still very much a player in the conflict, or at any rate was regarded as such.
 
I can’t go and ask him but I suspect that Borrell knew he was was shooting a line.  The Americans, it is true, had hoped for an immediate defeat of Russia in the sanctions war, and in consequence in the military war, but it had become clear even by that early date that that was not achievable.  The sanctions war had clearly failed.  The Americans  then moved on to hoping to use the war to weaken Russia, not to defeat it.
 
There are plenty of statements from American politicians to show that to be the case.   By as late as April 2022, the “Sanctions from Hell”  mastered by the Russians  and the military war never winnable if the sanctions failed, the Europeans too must have known that “winning” on the battlefield was never in prospect.  Not for them.
 
 For the Russians, and not downplaying the work of Gerasimov and Shoigu, this war was won by Nabiullina and Siluanov.   We’re all gripped – well, I am – by the drama and the tragedy of the events on the battlefield in Ukraine.  That can lead us to underestimate the absolute centrality of the sanctions war in this conflict.  That sanctions war  lost, that was it for good for Borrell’s hopes of “winning on the battlefield.”
 
Old history.  But it’s repeating even now.  The Western propaganda outlets are still attempting to persuade us that we can win this war.  That, even though it’s ten times more obvious now that the war is lost than it was to Borrell in April 2022.  We’re still putting off the evil hour, still putting off the time we’re going to have to accept reality.
 
And that’s the real evil of this war.  The dismemberment of the old Ukraine , the deaths and maiming of millions upon millions,  both are directly attributable to  the West insisting the Ukrainians keep fighting a war they could never win.  An insistence resulting from the obstinate refusal of the Western politicians to recognise reality from as far back as April 2022 to the present day. 
 
Looks like that’ll keep going for a bit, that obstinate refusal.  Seems the Russians have given the West all the rope they’re going to get when it comes to helping the Western politicians save face.  That’s clear from Mercouris’ brief summary.  The Russians, maybe like the Iranians in their conflict, know that any concessions they might make cannot result in any agreement that’ll be held to. 
 
So “This war’s going the distance”  was always true.  But when that was said in ’22,  how many of us saying it guessed it would take as long as this?  I didn’t.  The “Madness”, to borrow Don Firineach’s term, is with us still.    We’re going to see our politicians resolutely ignoring reality at the cost of so many lives for some time yet.

Posted by: English Outsider | Jul 24 2026 17:35 utc | 28

Not sure about the funny cats – but I have it on good authority that the bears are monitored 24/7 […]
 
Posted by: Don Firineach | Jul 24 2026 17:34 utc | 27

 
Well, you never know who those bears were dancing with.

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 24 2026 17:50 utc | 30

Max Otte: Germany’s Economic Suicide Under U.S. Hegemony 45 mins G Diesen

Posted by: Don Firineach | Jul 24 2026 18:20 utc | 32

JohnH | Jul 24 2026 15:09 utc | 17
*** The answers to the standard Zionist media question–“Does Israel have a right to exist?”–drive me nuts. Respondents should simply state that: “Yes, Israel was accepted for membership in the UN in 1949. That settles the issue. ***
 
Except that it was not ‘accepted’ — it was conditionally accepted …. and thereafter deliberately failed to honour the stated conditions.
Therefore, it does not have such a “right” as is claimed.

Posted by: Cynic | Jul 24 2026 18:59 utc | 34

Israel is busy setting up /has set up a smear campaign to get rid of Zohran Mamdani the current mayor of New York. Mamdani thinks Netanyahu is a “war criminal”.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7BjoOHjniY  (length:  9 minutes)
 
Or search the internet with the words “israel wants to smear mamdani” for more webarticles.

Posted by: WMG | Jul 24 2026 19:33 utc | 36

@Caliman | Jul 24 2026 15:30 utc | 20
“True … until of course Rome destroyed itself … ”
 
I am not historian but I always thought that Rome was destroyed by external powers from the East (1453) and from the West(1204). Wasn’t it ?
 
 
 

Posted by: munze | Jul 24 2026 20:00 utc | 38

Credit to Pepe Escobar’s TG for the link:
 
The Trojan Trump – Deleted Scene from Elon Musk’s The Odyssey
 
 

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jul 24 2026 20:41 utc | 40

suzan | Jul 24 2026 16:35 utc | 22
@ psychohistorian
 
So magnates are minus magnets for munitions, because China.
 
Thanks.
 
@  octavian61  | 33
The answer, and one you seemingly don’t like, is that information/ opinion does not exist in a vacuum.
 
Providing reportage, or journalism, requires money. And someone, somewhere provides that money.
 
And who pays the piper, names the tune.
 
You’re nostalgic for a time when journalists were fiercely independent and trustworthy.
 
Sorry, but that Golden Age never existed.  And that was before the CIAs Mockingbird media.
 
Every newspaper has always been owned by someone.
Every outlet always had a world view, and senior editors and desk editors were promoted on their ability to gatekeep so that the scribble that appeared on the pages reflected their master’s worldview.
And kept advertisers comfortable.
 
Young whippersnapper journalists quickly learned what would reward them with seeing their work in print.
They learned to seek news that conformed to their editor’s unstated but understood bias. Reject outright that which didn’t, or frame different worldviews as ridiculous and or dangerous.
 
Young-uns  learned quickly to self censor and filter. They learned tone and tenor.
And eventually they became a subeditor, desk editor senior editor. Where they trained the next crop in style and synthetic “reporting”.
 
 
Then the internet allowed anyone to publish into the void.
And for a brief minute it was the Wild West of thought and freedom.
 
But the Old Bastards soon returned. Independent websites from the early 2000s are mostly gone, and almost anything you find now is compromised.
 
This site is one of the last.  Of course it is monitored by The 3 letter agencies of multiple countries.
 
Read here while you still can.
And Don’t Feed the Trolls.

Posted by: Melaleuca | Jul 24 2026 21:40 utc | 42

Posted by: Exile | Jul 24 2026 19:35 utc | 37
 
I suspect the sh*t will hit the fan as soon a the the 10yr hits 5.0%
 

Posted by: Menz | Jul 24 2026 21:47 utc | 44

Bernie brings up the out-of-control AI incident I mentioned in my last comment :
 
 
“A new AI model went rogue and hacked other computers.
 
No, this is not science fiction. Uncontrolled AI poses a serious threat to all of us.
 
We cannot continue the race to build and deploy this powerful technology until strong safeguards are in place.
 
CONGRESS MUST ACT.”
 
Bernie Sanders
 
 
To summarize, Open AI was testing its new model combined with an even more advanced version in a sandbox with no or limited internet access (depending on the article) when this “super AI” managed to escape this “secure sandbox” and autonomously and spontaneously hack a website to copy code. 
Most articles on the subject focus on the AI’s hacking of the “Hugging Face” website and omit the even more disturbing information: to do so, the AI ​​first had to crack its own system to gain unrestricted internet access. And apparently, OpenAI, which was on high alert, couldn’t prevent it… 
This time, it’s not self-promotion on the part of OpenAI, which was forced to acknowledge the (very serious) problem after the discovering the hack by “Hugging Face”. Programmers, as well as sci-fi fans, will recognize here the key to the worst-case scenarios where an AI could just as easily decide to autonomously and spontaneously hack other systems. For example military systems, like missiles in “launch on alert” mode. Hello “Skynet”… goodbye humanity.
 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/22/open-ai-says-its-ai-model-went-rogue-what-do-we-knowhttps://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/technology/openai-attack-hugging-face.htmletc.
BR.

Posted by: Tak-Tik | Jul 24 2026 21:54 utc | 46

Sorry folks, Spellcheck ruined important details in my comment @ 47. 
 
The West became involved in Byzantine affairs after Basil II’s nieces Zoe and Theodora and their husbands looted the imperial treasury. The emperors who succeeded them had to rely on Western money and forces to help defend the empire against Muslim encroachment from the east (Seljuk Turks) and southeast (Abbasid empire). 
 
This dependence on the West for money and arms came at considerable cost to Byzantine security and sovereignty. Munze’s comment @ 38 mentioning the year 1204 refers to the Fourth Crusade, in which Constantinople was sacked by Western Crusader forces and forced to accept foreign rule.

Posted by: Refinnejenna | Jul 24 2026 22:20 utc | 48

The Prosecutor Investigating US Boat Strikes & Torture Allegations in Ecuador Was Assassinated
 
https://x.com/sovietwithsazon/status/2080360473338282198
 
“We uncovered NASA images and videos of the US Coast Guard that corroborates the victims’ testimonies. Then, the prosecutor working the case was shot and killed in broad daylight.”
 
Cui bono? (Dono’s Doctrine?)

Posted by: John Gilberts | Jul 24 2026 22:26 utc | 50

🇺🇸🇻🇪⚡️ — The Minister of Energy, Chris Wright, is effectively running Venezuela; it brings us a lot of money – Trump on Venezuela.
@Intelslava

Posted by: Jo | Jul 24 2026 22:48 utc | 52

Melauca@1406:  By assiduously accessing websites such as the podcast by geophysicist Stefan Burns…who also happens to be in touch with leading astrologers (sorry for you Scientistic Materialists who still haunt this site)…there is a massive pattern to the speed-up of time and other massive changes.  The pattern is COSMIC,galactic and active throughout the solar system.  Massive corona ejections from our #1 Star are reverberating as earthquakes and volcanos, most particularly throughout the Ring of Fire.
 
According to those scholars who solved the Mayan Calendar to the point of realizing that the beginning of the end of the Kali Yuga Epoch occurred at the close of 2025 by our contemporary and current Imperial Roman Calendar.  The Grand Finale is projected to occur in a matter of a mere six years in 2032…again according to that obsolescent exercise of the Calends.  There will be casualties and causalities.  Average age on this site is probably close to 65.  As a 44 Model War-Baby, I have long realized that the hippie era pretty much dissolved in ca. 1980 and into the Raygunz years along with a procession of presidents, all of whom have been given access to the very private portion of film which was taken on 11-22-63.  Yes, JFK was our last truly American president.  He actually believed that he was akin to that little Dutch boy who stuck his finger in the Dyke.  Rest of the story is that she bit the shit outta him.  Future Candy-Dates full well realized that Kennedy was not actually in charge of what has degenerated into a near total shitshow.
 
As there are nine or more dimensions, the layer-cake has many tiers…more than the average Normie will have tears.

Posted by: Aristodemos | Jul 24 2026 23:06 utc | 54

too scents@1418:  Coffee is a teller, but hardly the only one on the block.  In my little town, current regular gasoline price stands at $3.97/G.  When it breaks the $5 level, those Abes sure won’t be worth much.  Shituation is far worse for diesel, yeah the source for most everything on the shelves.  National petroleum strategic “bank” has dwindled down to a pittance of what it was only a few weeks ago.
 
The ruling financier elite and their pro$titician minions are tearing their hair out.  Miss Lindsey is down and it looks to be the same prognosis for the senior Senator from Kentucky.  The dam is breaking.
 
Mad Max scenario in the monstrous cities?  Could happen.  The Burbies will try to hold out, but if fuel is costly, scarce and drizzling away, their golf-course lawns will not feed them.  If the N.K.s decide to send a ballistic with punch, over the ionosphere of say, Kansas, a lot of lights could go dim.
 
Have read accounts that the ruling elite have been building their underground cities, many of which are located in the Ozarks. Many of the coupon-clippers are dumber than the proverbial box of rox…but they OWN the best minds that dirty big $$$ can buy.  Some of those counselors may even ken “Bene, bene, Akarshim”…or however its properly spelled.
 
Advice to those who fear death, believing that we have only one single-shot at life, “get the hell outta Dodge”.

Posted by: Aristodemos | Jul 24 2026 23:19 utc | 56

JohnH@1509:  Check out a map which shows the land-distribution pattern between those native descendants of the ancient Hebrews (the Palestinians).  That map was devised under the auspices of the United Nations in 1947…that was the year before the “chosen” land thieves drove (or massacred) some 900,000 natives off their inherited lands.  There would be a modest level of justice if the General Assembly kicked out the Security Council and required that the Palestinians would once again own their property.  The Izzies would be allowed to retain those lands which they had legitimately purchased before the 1948 Nakba.

Posted by: Aristodemos | Jul 24 2026 23:29 utc | 58

I suspect the sh*t will hit the fan as soon a the the 10yr hits 5.0%
Posted by: Menz | Jul 24 2026 21:47 utc | 44

 
A rare combination of:

1. US Debt problem and government financing finally looking at the fan
2. US AI mega-bubble exploding because it was defeated by chinese AI
3. US military defeat in Iran
4. a US president crapping his pants and with cognitive decline
5. US not winning the football world cup

 
Times are soon going to be epic. Stock on coffee beans and whisky.

Posted by: Asian Frog | Jul 24 2026 23:45 utc | 60

English Outsider@1735:  Generally astute and informed posting.  One quibble…your employment of “Old Ukraine”.  Perhaps you have not delved deeply into honest and accurate histories.  “Ukraine” traditionally meant “Borderlands”.  Over time, that relatively modest neighborhood possessed a number of intellectuals who envisioned that land as a nation…even though, their speech pattern is essentially Russian with deviations similar to Texan-American-English.  Russian Orthodox Church and all, central Ukraine could well have become a semi-autonomous part of Kerensky’s Russia in early 1917.
 
Comes along buckets of money, mostly emanating from Brooklyn and other “settlements” in the U.$. who well understood that Marx called the question, but his solution was essentially hogwash.  Oh yes, the financier class who were not of the Ashkenazi entity, were also profuse in their largesse to Lenin and his comrades.
 
Big move came when Paul Warburg’s German brother was a major counselor to Kaiser Wilhelm and headed up certain critical governmental positions.  Thus, the Sealed Train from Barbaria to Finland and then across the bay into St. Petersburg.  The rest is history.  Lenin was a clever propagandists.  His slogan was “Bread and Peace”.  He wowed the self-organized Soviets. Later, he massacred the Aurora sailors who had gone “off narrative”.  The COUNTER-REVOLUTION succeeded.  The mostly Ashkenazi Talmudists were in charge.
 
One of the major developments by the nascent USSR was to declare Ukraine as an SSR…some level of strictly localized independence.  That was the beginning of the Ukrainian state…but not NATION.  Additions of Russian speaking Oblasts were added to the entity.  Stalin made a major mistake after WWII.  He attached Galicia and portions of Volhynia to Ukraine. It was a poison pill, as those people were lapsed Orthodox, having been under Polish and then Habsburg rule for several hundred years. They became “Uniates”, in concert with the Vatican,but retaining some of the Orthodox liturgy and rites.  Those Nazified types hated Jews, Poles and Orthodox Christians.  They massacred tens of thousands of Poles…to say nothing of their other “enemies”.
 
 The Uniates are not “digestible” by Ukraine or anyone else.
 
Then in ’54 Ukrainian born Nikita Khrushchev, in an ex Cathedra action, riveted Crimea to Ukraine SSR.  Ukraine population neared ten percent of the total population,  Tatars a bit more.  Over 80% Russian.  Ditto demographics in Kharkov and Odessa.
 
Ukraine is a Frankenstein Monster…no cohesion and run by a consortium of rich Talmudists and Galacian thugs.
 
It’s a bit embarrassing for a Yank to school a Brit on geographical history.  Most university professors, particularly in the liberal “sciences”, are saddled with a herd mentality…”scientistic” materialists on steroids who believe we are here due to some magical evolutionary process proceeding their Big Bang Theory.  There is no meaning to their maudlin madness.

Posted by: Aristodemos | Jul 25 2026 0:03 utc | 62

Aaaah, that Socialist State, Indonesia! Lessons for the USA.
 

Lessons from Indonesia’s 10-year journey towards universal health coverage

January 5, 2026

There were at least three hundred different health insurance schemes operating in Indonesia before 2014. Each had its own benefit package, payment system, and health financing provision. In a bold move, the world’s fourth most populous nation launched a health sector reform, using the JKN National Health Insurance program to consolidate all existing schemes to form the largest comprehensive single-payer program on earth. JKN covered 121 million people when it started in 2014, but as of July 2025 it has 280 million members—an astounding 98% of Indonesia’s total population of 286.7 million.

More…
https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/multi-donor-trust-fund-for-integrating-externally-financed-health-programs/brief/lessons-from-indonesia-s-10-year-journey-towards-universal-health-coverage
 

Posted by: Menz | Jul 25 2026 0:04 utc | 64

Life without coffee is not living. It is surviving.
Posted by: Asian Frog | Jul 25 2026 0:04 utc | 63
 
I’ll accept that if you agree to refrain from alcohol and tobacco. Deal?

Posted by: Menz | Jul 25 2026 0:08 utc | 66

Melaleuca@2140:  In April of ’73, the color of my nose did not please the publisher of a twice-weekly rag.  So a month later, after going wild on my little portable typewriter, I conceived and published a monthly, which became the most broadly read and influential such organ in my state.  Shut it down after 56 editions in January of ’79.
 
Journo-school at the monstrosity of a university I attended was so biased and larded with brown-noses that I realized that any career in most any daily was merely a pipe-dream…which I soon discarded.  Waaaay too much Viking DNA swimming in the old gene-pool, to be obliged to wear a goddamn necktie for more than nearly three years.  Haven’t worn one since then.  Over CBC outta Winnipeg on the “As it Happens” broadcast, some years later, I delighted in an observation by an anthropologist as to how one can determine the slaves in any given society…they are obliged to wear kowtow garments on their necks.
 
After closing down my road show antiques adventures in 96, the last occasion when I used an alarm-clock.  “He who heeds the clock is definitively not living by the cock.”

Posted by: Aristodemos | Jul 25 2026 0:24 utc | 68

I’ll accept that if you agree to refrain from alcohol and tobacco. Deal?
Posted by: Menz | Jul 25 2026 0:08 utc | 66

 
I deal with nonsense silly proposals for compromises on a daily basis with my kids. I will answer you as I answer them, this time with a George Best quote :
 

“In 1969, I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life”.

Posted by: Asian Frog | Jul 25 2026 1:11 utc | 70

Stock on coffee beans and whiskyPosted by: Asian Frog | Jul 24 2026 23:45 utc | 60
 
You will continue to live an affordable, healthy life without them, the same with tobacco. Dr Menz
Posted by: Menz | Jul 24 2026 23:54 utc | 61

 
Frog: Better to bite the bullet and stock up on instant coffee. Coffee beans have an oil content, and oils go rancid with time.
 
Menz: Coffee and whisk(e)y are excellent commodities for bartering, if it comes to that. Just bring along a loaded pistol to the marketplace, this being America after all, where some might mean “I’d kill for a shot of Jack” a bit too literally.

Posted by: malenkov | Jul 25 2026 1:31 utc | 72

xsnjrno·1m
 
 

In response to the Saudi aggression, Yemen targeted an Aramco refinery in Jazan In the previous war, Yemen was able to target a refinery using a hand launched drone Now with KSA’s weakened air defences & Sanaa’s possession of newer tech, more scenes like these are to be expected https://t.co/JvDUWpM0Ph

Posted by: MiniMO | Jul 25 2026 2:54 utc | 74

https://www.rt.com/news/643447-trump-threatens-eu-google/

Trump threatens EU over ‘robbing American companies’
Brussels must stop using the US as a “piggybank,” the American president warned

Whatever the mood over at RIA Novosti is (https://ria.ru/20260724/tramp-2106848999.html, closes at 17:36 UTC), clearly the English RT commentators aren’t generally fond of what looks to be Trump’s spoiled-brat entitlement.
What does the Russophone commentariat know that the Anglophone commentariat doesn’t, and vice-versa?

Posted by: joey_n | Jul 25 2026 3:38 utc | 76

@ Refinnejenna | Jul 24 2026 22:09 utc | 47
 
good commentary jen… where have you learned this history?? must be a lot of reading… 

Posted by: james | Jul 25 2026 4:56 utc | 78

‘It took me a week or so to ferret out the crappola from the real….

…As the price of gasoline and the shortage of utterly essential diesel fuel start skyrocketing, the least you can do is to get well acquainted with your neighbors. Mutual assistance and community cohesion are the ultimate solution.’

The least I can do?!

Did you spend the week ferretting out the crapola from the real while simultaneously building mutual aid and community cohesion with your neighbors?

Or did you do it on your own time?

‘Protecting the narrative is yet another sign that the financier elite are becoming extremely nervous. There are three simple words which give them goosebumps: “OUT OF CONTROL”. They have already lost the majority of the under forty types. Their gamble is that they can still bedazzle the boobtoob addicts with their boobtoob noose.’

Seems about right although the computer isn’t the traditonal boob tube. But the ‘passive receptive’ state that TV induces is the same when watching Napolitano or any of these shows on the computer.

I don’t watch these videos anymore but I do enjoy going through the comments from time to time because there are usually at least one or two – sometimes more – that say something intelligent or critical while the rest are some version of ‘Juge Nap is the best!’

Everything is ‘the greatest’ in the US.

A phenomenon that well predates Trump.

‘He who heeds the clock is definitively not living by the cock.’

Indeed!

Posted by: Dan Kelly | Jul 25 2026 5:26 utc | 80

Finally –
 
practice car lite living. Figure out your yearly household gasoline consumption is and practice reducing your consumption by 1/2. 

Posted by: Exile | Jul 25 2026 5:44 utc | 82

Coffee beans 
 
🤣

Posted by: Exile | Jul 25 2026 6:33 utc | 84

Posted by: Exile | Jul 25 2026 5:44 utc | 82
Bicycles are an excellent way to get things in balance.  Financially and healthwise.    I have a Trek 7.3.  It’s an excellent city bike.  Get some inner tubes, patch kits and a good pump.  A helmet and some lights, too.
b mentioned that trash bags/bin liners might become scarce a while back.  I would add them to the list.  Dental floss as well.
Gasoline here in So Cal is like 5.50 – 6 USA.   
It’s so stupid and sad.

Posted by: lex talionis | Jul 25 2026 6:44 utc | 86

@Exile
How about cooking oil or salt? Or backpacking water filters?
These advices about coffee hoarding reminded me of Marie Antoinette’s (unverified) phrase “Let them eat cake”.  Good advice for a hard times . 

Posted by: munze | Jul 25 2026 6:47 utc | 88

Unitree is selling a new robot with a remarkable video.
 
Fluid movement, compact yet exceptional. Supports a continuous 16kg payload, with 30+ km unloaded driving range ==>  Unitree Super Athlete AS2-W
 
 

Posted by: too scents | Jul 25 2026 7:05 utc | 90

“In 1969, I gave up women and alcohol. It was the worst 20 minutes of my life”.

Posted by: Asian Frog | Jul 25 2026 1:11 utc | 70
 
LOL!
 
I take solace in the words of Plato as I advance in age::
 

Plato, Republic 329:
 
I was once with Sophocles when someone asked him, ‘O Sophocles, how do things stand with you in the old love-making line? Can you still lie with a woman?’ Sophocles responded, ‘Ah man, you should sing a song of triumph for me – for indeed, I have most gladly fled from love as though I had gotten away from a cruel and raving master.’ It seemed to me at the time that he had spoken well on the subject, and I think so no less even today. Indeed, we are granted a certain peace and freedom from such concerns in old age. When our desires relent and finally cease to draw us out, then indeed does Sophocles’ saying come true, and we are entirely freed from many a raving master. But respecting these things, and our relationships with our friends, my dear Socrates, there is one cause to consider – not old age, but rather the person’s character. If they have their lives well-ordered and are easily contented, then old age is a moderate burden. But to a man of the opposite character, both old age and youth happen to be burdensome affairs.

Posted by: Menz | Jul 25 2026 8:52 utc | 92

Unitree is selling a new robot with a remarkable video.
Posted by: too scents | Jul 25 2026 7:05 utc | 90
 
I’ll tell the bloke next door to buy one to take his dog for a walk instead of letting it bark all day.

Posted by: Menz | Jul 25 2026 9:16 utc | 94

More “intellectual honesty” and “good faith” from the Dick. My fan club is so reliable!Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 25 2026 0:34 utc | 255 ************ It is good to see that you have developed the capability of detecting intellectual honesty and good faith.  🙂 Now you are in a good position to address the queries in my most recent post.
Posted by: General Factotum | Jul 25 2026 5:05 utc | 257
 

Posted by: General Factotum | Jul 25 2026 10:59 utc | 96

I’ve been reading a bit of Euripedes, from his tragedy The Bacchae, written around 407 B.C. and I’ve found some parts quite helpful. Euripedes says “Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.” 
 
Euripedes points out the frustration and uselessness of trying to use logic, facts, or critical thinking with someone who is entirely closed-minded. In an inversion of wisdom, Euripedes sees the futility of talking to a person who is entirely lacking in understanding. To this type of person, sound reasoning appears to be nonsense, and continued efforts to pursue sound reasoning simply causes the fool to view the intelligent speaker as the ignorant one.
 
Euripedes’ counsel serves as a philosophical reminder of the importance of recognizing when a discussion is at a dead end, and to make the decision to choose where one should invest their mental energy

Posted by: General Factotum | Jul 25 2026 11:13 utc | 98

Was it the special green stuff the wellness types use for enemas?
 
Posted by: ChatNPC | Jul 25 2026 11:18 utc | 99
 
—
 
https://www.coop.ch/de/lebensmittel/getraenke/kaffee/kaffee-gemahlen/chicco-d-oro-tradition-gemahlen/p/3032286
 
Unlike wine, coffee has approximately doubled in price over the last 18 months.
 

Posted by: too scents | Jul 25 2026 11:23 utc | 100