Links 3/25/2026

An Adrenaline Junkie Millionaire’s Quest to Become a Cocaine Kingpin 404 Media Climate/Environment [Update: As readers have noted, the following graph omits years 2023-2025. Here is a link to graph with those years included.] Folks this can’t be happening 🔥👀 pic.twitter.com/897CpI6Fme — Climate Watcher 🔥🇨🇦🇬🇧 🇯🇲🌺 (@pmagn) March 24, 2026 Warming coastal waters primary driver of large-scale humid heatwaves Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Epic river migrations of fish rapidly collapsing, UN report finds The Guardian 🌡️Widespread +25–35°F anomalies again tomorrow (3/25), with 80s and 90s pushing deep into the Plains & Midwest. On its own, this would be standout late-March heat. Stacked on top of the past week… it’s something else entirely. pic.twitter.com/K4ov1jm3Wq — The Global Warmer🔥🌏 🔥 (@TheGlobalWarmer) March 24, 2026 There’s been quite a few questions re: just how unusual the upcoming storm in the Middle East is. So here’s some maps: The shortwave trough forcing the severe outbreak will easily be the deepest on record (1950-2024) in March, and may potentially set the yearly record. https://t.co/EyQPOoUoXG pic.twitter.com/YnecTVQG8O — Tomer Burg (@burgwx) March 25, 2026 Blocking diversity causes distinct roles of diabatic heating in the Northern Hemisphere Nature Sorry your house burned down. Here’s a $23,000 HOA bill — due next month Los Angeles Times Wildfire smoke linked to rise in violent assaults, 11-year study finds Phys.org Japan Japan set to send combat troops to Philippine exercises — Brawner Manila Times Germany steps up Indo-Pacific push, eyeing visiting-forces pact with Japan Japan Times China? With US trapped in Iran, why is China wasting a golden opportunity to attack Taiwan? China Translated Southeast Asia Marcos orders P20B emergency fund to secure fuel supply Manila Times Fuel Shortages Fail to Stop Deadly Junta Airstrikes on Civilians The Irrawaddy India US-Approved Iranian Barrels Find a Cautious Reception in India Bloomberg Syraqistan *** United States Said to Have Sent Iran a Plan to End the Middle East War New York Times Is Trump Serious About Negotiations with Iran? Larry Johnson BREAKING | Iran’s Fars News Agency reports that US and Israeli strikes targeted energy infrastructure in Isfahan and Khorramshahr, including a gas management building, a pressure reduction station, and a gas pipeline linked to a power plant; damage was reported to the facilities… — The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) March 24, 2026 Red Crescent reports 82,000 civilian structures hit in Iran DPA International War in Iran: Why destroying cultural heritage is such a foolish strategic move in any conflict The Conversation Talks better than fighting, China tells Iran TRT World *** Top PMU commander, over a dozen fighters killed in new US strikes on Iraq The Cradle 🇺🇸🇮🇱🇮🇶 The Iraqi Armed Forces and the Iraqi Council of National Security have given the Popular Mobilization Forces full authority to respond to and retaliate against any U.S. and Israeli attacks, effectively giving them the green light to enter the war formally. pic.twitter.com/NwbfLT5tkV — The Daily News (@DailyNewsJustIn) March 24, 2026 *** Israel says it will take control of large buffer zone in southern Lebanon BBC Lebanon withdraws Iran envoy’s accreditation, orders him to leave Al Arabiya Incredible quotes in the deleted Telegraph article about the Lebanese Christians supporting Hezbollah. I wonder why they didn’t want their audience to read this 🤔 pic.twitter.com/TR4YxupIw5 — Wyatt Reed (@wyattreed13) March 24, 2026 Africa Trump’s Sahel reset banks on ‘sovereignty,’ guns + minerals deals Responsible Statecraft Old Blighty The London Ambulances Attack: Of Course It Was A False Flag Craig Murray European Disunion US seeks access to 3 new defense areas in Greenland: Report Anadolu Agency Mette Frederiksen’s leftwing bloc fails to win majority in Danish election The Guardian Nato chief riles Europe by backing Trump’s war in Iran FT Stagflation alarm bells ring in the euro zone as energy crunch hits the global economy CNBC EU delays proposal to ban Russian oil amid Iran war, price spikes and Druzhba row Euronews German military satellite plan fuels EU fragmentation fears Reuters New Not-So-Cold War The Russian Bear wakes Julian MacFarlane Lavrov: its WW3 Oliver Boyd-Barrett Blaze at Russia’s Baltic Sea port of Ust-Luga after major Ukrainian drone attack Straits Times Russia fires nearly 1,000 drones in one of its largest aerial attacks on Ukraine The Guardian Trump 2.0 Leaked Document: Iran War Meets Little Brother Ken Klippenstein Senate shoots down Iran war powers measure; Fetterman, Paul cross aisle The Hill Americans would trade jobs for cheaper eggs The Argument Democrats flip Florida state House district that includes Trump’s Mar-a-Lago The Hill Democrats Suck Schumer indicates Democratic openness to Republicans’ DHS deal Semafor Police State Watch Exclusive: ICE’s Bounty Hunters Ken Klippenstein Minnesota Sues Trump Administration Over ICE Killings — And a Car Sitting Shrink-Wrapped in a Warehouse Migrant Insider The Accelerationists The billionaires who think humanity is just a warm-up act Oligarch Watch Screening Room “Sinners” and the Bad History of the Blues HOGELAND’S BAD HISTORY Agriculture Strait of Hormuz Closure and Fertilizer Supply Risks for U.S. Agriculture Farmdoc Daily Imperial Collapse Watch Epistemic Collapse Un-Diplomatic Plans, Platforms And Projectiles. Aurelien Resource Rassling Column: Every missile fired over Iran is burning through US tungsten stocks Reuters Chinese Titanium ChinaTalk QatarEnergy declares force majeure on some LNG contracts due to Iran war Al Jazeera Energy Crisis Powers Up Big Payday for LNG Exporter Venture Global Daily Upside Sports Desk FIFA canceled thousands of hotel room reservations in World Cup host cities The Independent (resilc) lmao a meteor just fly by and of course the ump missed it 😂 pic.twitter.com/d83pmXlWrq — Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) March 23, 2026 The Bezzle Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang claims AGI has been ‘achieved,’ can create billion-dollar businesses yahoo! Finance The AI Industry Is Lying To You Edward Zitron Meta ordered to pay $375m after being found liable in child exploitation case The Guardian Meta Targets $9 Trillion Valuation With New Executive Incentive Program WSJ Mr. Market Foreign Funds Ditch $50 Billion in Asian Stocks as Oil Shock Dims Prospects OilPrice Class Warfare “We can do this the easy way or the hard way” “Hard way plz!” https://t.co/s43mpjTXga — The Last Farm (@TheLastFarm) March 24, 2026 Antidote du jour (via): See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here. > Folks this can’t be happening! That’s right, because this is disingenuous chart porn. They knocked out 2023, 24, and 25. It’s at record high, that’s not good, but they ripped off the dress and squealed the petticoat isn’t fit for a ball. See: Climate Reanalyzer Actually it’s not a record high. There were several days in 2024 in which the daily sea surface temperature reached 21.17 C — a bit higher than the 21.14 C recorded on March 23, 2026. But you wouldn’t know that because the poster deliberately de-selected 2024 from the graphic. Re: Peter Thiel is betting big on a $2B AI cow collar startup powered by cowgorithms — and investors are fighting to get in “The collars connect to a farmer’s phone, allowing ranchers to monitor their herd’s location and health indicators through an app — and even move cattle remotely using vibrations and audio cues from the devices.” No truth to the rumour that Palantir is planning to offer this technology to employers (/s) Interestingly enough, I sat through a two-day online forest service seminar on targeted grazing using e-collars. They’re really pushing for requiring all grazing to be “targeted” grazing. There are a lot of potential benefits, but it could also just be folks trying to make a quick buck. How are the collars meant to move the cows around. Will the train them? DOesn’t someone still have to go out and look at the pastures? Is the idea to collar the whole herd? Or just certain animals? What happens if a cow moves away from the herd to calve? Will the collar try to move her back where she belongs? You have to train the cows to the collars. And it’s not just a single virtual fence, you generally have multiple similar polygons nested within each other. As the cows start to cross through them, they get stronger signals to move back in the right direction. You collar all the adults, don’t have to collar calves. Data I’ve seen shows a high acceptance rate by the cows but a few are just belligerent and won’t listen. If you’re familiar with cows that’s not surprising. The collars get you various data streams. There’s high and low activity alerts, so animals being frightened or perhaps sick or giving birth, estimates of time spent foraging vs. wandering around, etc. I’m looking at using collared cows for invasive grass control, and using real-time remote sensing data on two week intervals to target areas of high density during green up. Basically using reduction in NVDI and increase in cow movements relative to foraging and/or willingness to push the virtual fence as indicator of having grazed off the invasives and then moving the virtually fenced pasture across the landscape. There’s a window in the spring where the invasives are growing before native vegetation is greening up it’s conducive to this type of work. Bovine Intervention? Core VC maxim: never be too early! We invested in a fitbit-for-cows physiology monitoring solution plus AI analytics back in 2016. It had some brilliant insights, using machine learning to baseline individual cow behaviour and detect / predict issues and events like lameness, overheating, oestrus etc. far more consistently than the unskilled labour being hired by BigAg. Despite this, it was very hard to get sales. We had a big contract with a global dairy produce brand but never got it rolled out at scale. Price was an issue – fancy monitoring collars don’t come cheap – and also the competitor of “do nothing”, nobody got fired for accepting the status quo and failing conventionally. We ended up selling the business to a trad-ag manufacturer of plastic ear tags, LOL. Halter is a little different to our product. It enables the farmer to define the fences virtually, by GPS. This can be very useful if running very actively managed grazing systems like mob grazing (moving many cows daily between small paddocks to mimic wild grazing patterns driven by herding/predator instincts). I don’t know if it now includes physiometry. The quid pro quo is that the cow is wearing a big shock collar…. I will definitely run the numbers in detail on a Halter solution before I invest in a lot of fencing for our eco-tall grass grazing plan for our farm. Back of the envelope analysis: – $5-$8 per cow per month sounds expensive when you consider a 100 cow suckler herd with 100 calves will make say $50k profit per annum (at current high calf prices). That’s $12,000-$19,200 of extra cost per annum. Call is $16,000 – However, with traditional fencing at $16/metre, that’s say 1000m a year. That’s the perimeter of a square field of side 250m or an area of 62,500sqm or 6.25ha or c. 16 acres. – I would need roughly 20 years to refence the farm at 16 acres per year (usual fence life is 10 years, maybe 20 with a lot of patching). – that’s just perimeter fencing. If I divided the farm into 130 1ha blocks, I need 130 fields of side 100m and perimeter 400m, that’s 52,000m of fencing (naively) or c. 26,000m allowing for shared edges. Refencing 26,000m in 20 years requires 1,300m fencing per year which is $20,800 per annum versus $16,000 for Halter. – so, maybe Halter is cheaper for mob grazing and you get digital data of some kind on too – BUT a fenced field works for any livestock (can halter deal with sheep or pigs or horses etc?) and in the UK there is a grant of $9 towards the fencing cost. So Halter then looks very expensive at $16k versus $9,100 per annum. I’m going to sit on the fence on this buying decision! came across this:https://x.com/cirnosad/status/2036667172458799300 and also a map, that i cant find, now, regarding how everything in north america is leafing/budding way, way early. i will add my own observation: i spend most of my time outside, so i notice things, year over year. this year, not only are the trees leafing/budding early, they are doing so out of order…mesquites are usually last, and thus the old timer’s evidence that spring is really here. oaks are second to last. not this year,lol. elms, usually rather early, are just now doing their thing…and the figs leafed out way early, and got bit by the freeze last week. signs and portents. amfortas, this is very off-topic but I wonder if you’ve ever read a book called Earth Abides? For some reason it comes to my mind sometimes when I read your comments. Peace, BP Also a weird spring in my desert, with lush rocket greens shooting up to 4′ heights where there should be nothing but tough desert rabbitbrushy things getting started. This out-of-order thing started being noticeable in the South 20 years ago; when the lovely unified explosion of azaleas began to go totally out of whack, with some blooming very early, and out of sequence with all the other spring flowers. My botanist buddy explained some plants go by length of day, some by soil temperature. Which USED to happen in a bit of lockstep, but now all bets are off, and springs seem disjointed and a bit scraggly. Do you remember the azaleas at the Masters? Twenty years ago, they were putting ice on them around Amen Corner. Now, the best they can do is have one in a pot that’s blooming in the opening. It’s hard for me to see how anyone who gardens, hunts, fishes or just takes walks through the woods cannot see how things are changing. Perhaps those still resistant do not grasp that those little changes, little signs that things are off, portend dire outcomes up ahead as this huge system, that had been so stable during our little run, makes massive shifts toward a new equilibrium that will take no account of humans and their civilization. earthling Paople in my neighbourhood (southern Vancouver Island) have been cutting lawns all “winter” which has in fact been non-existent this year. The blossoms are all out on some trees in Chemainus, the nearest small town, and in Victoria. There is no scow on the local mountains, which bodes ill for summer drought, which we’ve had for the past several year. Even the rainfall totals have been below normal. Kansas City was budding early like crazy earlier this month only to get hit by a few days of 15 degree lows which appeared to wipe out a lot of tree and flower buds–only to be blasted by 93 degrees 5-6 days later. The variability in temps is crazy lately. I’m in Salt Lake City and noticed the fruiting trees all blossomed all at once. We went from buds open to the blossoms falling off in what felt like 3 days. I noticed the buds on trees and rose bushes about a month ago. I was so sad about it. I have a late April birthday and my birthday is usually colder than it is today, and will typically have the kind of spring we’re having right now. “Epistemic Collapse” I’ve read elsewhere that the fall of the Soviet Union wasn’t because of the Reagan era military build up which propaganda says was the cause, but from epistemic collapse fueled initial by the Afghan war but put into final collapse after all the lies surfaced over Chernobyl. If the war in Iran keeps on the track that it’s on and the US sends in ground forces which fail just as miserably, I could see an epistemic collapse in the US and possibly spreading to some other western nations. “The London Ambulances Attack: Of Course It Was A False Flag” The more you go into this story, the more suss it is. For example, those ambulances were due for replacement so now you wonder if it was partly a insurance job as much as claiming it was an antisemitic attack. But lots of people in the UK were surprised that Jewish people not only have their own ambulance service but their own police as well. Wait, what? https://xcancel.com/doctor_rahmeh/status/2036017428409225517#m https://xcancel.com/Wren_Poltics/status/2036006241953022010#m The whole thing smacks of a state within a state. Normally I would not really care but it seems that they both get government funding. The Starmer government has already supplied 5 brand new ambulances to replace the 4 that were arsoned – 2 of which were already scheduled for replacement. At the same time, donations to the Jewish charity appeal to replace the ambulances have now topped well over one million pounds, so it is a win/win for them. Just waiting for the claims adjusters to approve the insurance claim I suppose for it to become a win/win/win. Not sure where the government sourced the new ambulances literally overnight, as they are like gold dust in certain parts of the country, where wait times can stretch hours. Two men, aged 45 and 47, have been arrested, but no further details about background and potential motives, even though the arson was universally and instantly described as anti-semitic by the media, politicians etc. Do Jewish charities in the UK really need more help? https://xcancel.com/jvgraz/status/2036507751862640871#m Italian lightning Sorry your house burned down. Here’s a $23,000 HOA bill — due next month Los Angeles Times Luke Carlson, an attorney who wrote a book about battling bad HOAs, was appalled when he heard about the lawsuit, which the HOA filed in March after a resident, whose home was destroyed in the fire, failed to pay mounting HOA dues, including the special assessment. “It seems somewhat outrageous,” he said. “This is a situation where a homeowner has lost everything, and I don’t see how aggressive litigation solves any problems.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Was curious how many of the 6,700 homes lost in the Eaton Fire in Altadena had been rebuilt in the 14 months since, and it looks as of less than 20 on total. 1 in 350 ‘Wyatt Reed @wyattreed13 Incredible quotes in the deleted Telegraph article about the Lebanese Christians supporting Hezbollah. I wonder why they didn’t want their audience to read this 🤔’ For those interested, that original Telegraph story is still on Yahoo! News- https://uk.news.yahoo.com/christians-hezbollah-unite-against-epstein-100000557.html Gleaned from this morning’s NY Times e-blast. Newsom Says He Regrets Remarks Comparing Israel to ‘Apartheid State’ The California governor suggested that he had meant to refer to Israel’s potential future direction, not its current policies. “I revere the state of Israel,” he said. Revere? Brethren and sistren, what can this mean? Is this his twisty way of “Israel has a right to exist”? And as Francesca Albanese has pointed out, no state has “rights” to exist. PS: And super duper local, Daniel Biss, so much flailing: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/daniel-biss-deserves-pro-israel-support/ I think that he should remain as mayor of Evanston, being the mayor that Evanston deserves. “No, I said ‘a part-TIDE’. I was making reference to the famous episode in the red sea.” You’ll note that further in his answer, he refers to the treatment of the West Bank as potentially problematic, though not of course that of Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, Qatar, Iraq, &c. In the immortal words of Boris Johnson, what a “supine invertebrate protoplasmic jelly”. He’ll make a good presidential candidate, and I wish him the worst. Vicky Cookies: That’s why I mentioned Daniel Biss, who won the primary in the House of Representatives district (Ninth) in which I still vote as an absent Chicagoan. But but but: In Biss’s case, his grandparents found Israel a refuge as survivors of the Holocaust. So he’s going to bring in his grandparents and waffle. And shouldn’t Palestinians find their own country a refuge from a genocide? And the two-state solution for people like Newsom and Biss will never mean shutting down all (and I mean all) of the illegal settlements around Jerusalem and in the West Bank. Burble burble but we can’t uproot 700,000 illegals from their homes… So Biss will be a reliable blob of gelatinous protoplasm, given that his current pronouncements likely are as bold as he can get before he succumbs to D.C. I lived in Evanston for a few years. Then I moved back to supposedly wildly corrupt Chicago. What I had seen in Evanston was a kind of syndrome: Too Many White People in One Place. That’s a great framing (removing illegals). If they need help, perhaps we can send some of our ICE agents. All roads leading to political Washington go through AIPAC. It is just a fact of life. Sooner or later Newsom will make a speech there swearing loyalty to Israel to get his ticket punched. “i tried mildly criticizing a genocidal ethnostate, but I didn’t inhale” As a local near Biss’s district, I followed this race with considerable interest. There’s no question Biss is a politician in the conventional toxic sense. But a full reading of the linked story really doesn’t portray Biss in the worst possible light, and AIPAC used skullduggery to support Biss only after they whiffed in a big-bucks effort to ram through the even harder-line Laura Fine for the seat. Now, Newsom is another kettle of sludge entirely. The idea that Team Blue is getting its speculum ready to ram him through as our only “choice” in 2028 is enough to make me graphically ill. Speaking as an Illinoisan, I’ve mostly been positively impressed by Pritzker’s work here. Even knowing his connections both to Israel and to Obama, I’m much more comfortable with him than with Newsom. Germany and Japan, closer military cooperation, per the Japan Times: “Speaking to The Japan Times, German Secretary of State for Defense Nils Hilmer said that as the strategic partners step up cooperation, they are looking at ways to facilitate larger and more complex joint military activities in each other’s territories.” What could possibly go wrong? Hey, maybe they could convince Italy to join them as well. It would be a sort of pact. They could even name it the Tripartite Pact 2.0- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripartite_Pact Rev Kev: Ahici. There is an excellent column by Alessandro Robecchi in today’s Fatto Quotidiano. Robecchi has a column on Tuesdays and is always witty and insightful. (I can’t find a reliable link.) He writes today about the motivation of many of the No voters in the referendum that just abrogated the law that tried to mess with balance of powers in the Italian constitution. Ma ci prendono per scemi? Do they think we’re that stupid? The consequences of the referendum have the Italians busy these days. A rightwing deputy / undersecretary at Justice was forced to resign. He was stupidly corrupt and, unfortunately, is from the Undisclosed Region, where his corruption is now having side effects. Another highly placed rightwinger was forced out of Justice. And the stupidly poke-you-in-the-eye corrupt minister of tourism is causing a bigger government crisis because she refuses to resign. (And face charges.) She, too, is from the Undisclosed Region (sheesh) although she’s better known for her famous collection of handbags. So: I write this having seen that the Italians hold Japanese culture and cookery in high regard. There is much genuine Japanese influence here in the Undisclosed Region. But at this point Italians are already questioning what NATO is up to, let alone imagining themselves in some Expanded Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, with rye bread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_East_Asia_Co-Prosperity_Sphere I was going through Italy back in the 80s and one thing that impressed me was that the Italians took their politics seriously. When pushed, they pushed back. I saw this with a confrontation with protesters and police in Rome. The police were lied up with a commander in front trying to look important while the protestors were making a helluva racked by banging metal garbage bins and the like. It kept things from getting boring there. At the same time I have to say that traveling in Italy was embarrassing back then. You would lob into an Italian city like Florence with your sweaty backpack and grungy traveling clothes. Then you would note that all the men, and I mean all the men, were snappy dressers who wore stylish clothes. It was like waking through a fashion house but showed me how things could be if we wanted them to be. The Grauniad just announce that the bag lady has resigned… re: EU vs. freedom of speech EU Commission threatens Biennale to cut funding if the organizers won´t ban Russian artists. NACHDENKSEITEN machine-translation Russians out! Otherwise, funding will be cut: EU Commission blackmails international art exhibition https://archive.is/vLWLr The EU also points to its sanctions regime. ” Member States, institutions and organisations must act in accordance with EU sanctions and avoid providing a platform to individuals who have actively supported or justified the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine .” The EU Commission does not hesitate to package its cancel culture in phrases about “diversity and freedom of expression”: ” Culture promotes and protects democratic values, fosters open dialogue, diversity and freedom of expression, and should never be used as a platform for propaganda. “ You see! This is why we must go to war with Russia to fight for our freedoms! Anduril, Palantir Are Developing Golden Dome Missile Shield’s Software (WSJ, archived) Skynet, but it hallucinates? The Global Warmer. Scorched earth on the great plains. What sprang to my mind is the Dust Bowl of the 1930s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl#/media/File:Map_of_states_and_counties_affected_by_the_Dust_Bowl,_sourced_from_US_federal_government_dept._(NRCS_SSRA-RAD).svg Same underlying conditions? Misuse of the land? Mismanagement of water and irrigation? Monocropping? Overreliance on a few species that don’t remediate the soil? Major contributing factors to the Jackpot will be the drying up of the Colorado River watershed and the exhaustion of the Ogallalah Aquifer. I was traveling recently in the Imperial Valley of Southern California – the poisoned terminus of the American Century – and was flabbergasted to see the immense fields of alfalfa being grown in the desert. Absolute insanity. That Alfalfa being grown in California’s Central Valley is shipped to Saudi Arabia. It’s crazier than you thought it was. Yes, and I’ve heard of Saudi-owned alfalfa farms in Arizona that irrigate their crops with underground water. Insanity, amplified… When I was a kid in the 1950s, children were shown a lot of films, books, and even a few TV shows that talked about how crop rotation and more use of contour plowing etc. were going to help prevent another Dust Bowl… Is soil conservation even a thing in the media anymore, or is the subject considered too boring and “low tech”? We are ruled by people who think that farming is eady: if you plant seed, stuff will come out, without you doing anything about it. (I think Mike Bloomberg said this, but can’t remember exactly). And you water it with Brawndo? Its got electrolytes. Syracuse University to axe nine majors as cost-cutting at the school continues syracuse.com So much for humanities. Deep state programs (Maxwell School) and propaganda (Newhouse School) untouchable. Not analogous, since Wichita State is a state school and Syracuse isn’t. But yesterday I was looking at a long student newspaper piece on the school’s rising debt, and they gave a figure of 18% as the state’s share of costs. During my student days, that figure was near 80%. With student tuition covering 16%, this leaves nearly 2/3 of costs to be borne by the school’s various defense contracts and business ventures. re: insane NATO paper 2025 This was linked in a Sept. piece on Nel Bonilla´s Substack (which I posted here last week.) Not Withstanding? An Upbeat Perspective on Societies’ Will to Fight https://www.ndc.nato.int/fr/not-withstanding-an-upbeat-perspective-on-societies-will-to-fight/ This NATO “strategy” paper is among the most insane things I have read recently. Perhaps of interest to some of the NC-writers too. In short it´s presenting models and methods to make “modern-day, democratic societies” resilient and ready for war. This is Mussolini inverted. While Mussolini made no secret about the brutal nature of fascism to keep the bees busy – a grim but heroic demand for sacrifice – here all the progressive tropes of civil society are turned into qualities to harness for being ready to make war in a likeable, upbeat and democratic fashion. They propagate improvisation, laymanship and democratic structures i.e. down to top approach vs. the allegedly „outdated“ hierarchical top-down long-term planning as allegedly applied by „Russia and China“ in order to win war. It also includes such fun ideas as a “questionnaire” to what “type of thinker” you are to then suggest three archetypes: “The Strategist” – Henry Kissinger “The Planner” – Angela Merkel “The Influencer” – Kaja Kallas “A Mix of the three” Another set of role models refers to „concepts for gauging resolve“: Edward Luttwak Charles Moskos Carl von Clausewitz This is role-playing game design 101 for 12-year old children. Some quotes from dense 84 pages: „(…)Today’s elites often portray young people as apathetic, anti-militaristic, and disengaged from defence issues. (…) The real issue is not that Gen Z won’t fight – it is that they have not been given a vision of a future worth fighting for.(…)“ „(…)In the 2000s (…) many politicians simply assumed their populations could not stomach conflict – that they were a “post-heroic” consumer society. Their response – wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, entered by democratic governments keen to downplay potential costs, and, fought by tiny forces using exquisite technology – bequeathed us a military posture that was distinctly post-heroic. We tend to remember that era as a time of popular naivety about war and the world. In fact, it was an era of elite cynicism about society. And that, more than anything, may explain today’s low willingness to fight.(…)“ „(…)By contrast, the Falklands and Gulf War demonstrate how shrinking, post-industrial societies can leverage their technological and logistical strengths against mass industrial adversaries like Saddam Hussein’s million-strong army, contradicting the assumption of ‘post-heroism.’ Yet despite such precedents, strategy-making tends to entrench rather than challenge fears about societal fragility, locking in negative future outcomes. War-gaming and red-teaming, mainstays of strategy-making, tend to be carried out by small elite groups and seldom incorporate societal input. This narrows perspectives and gives intellectual weight to pre-existing anxieties about societal weakness, often justified by selective historical parallels.(…)“ „(…)Highly technical planning processes can unintentionally unleash tribal madness. Planners may feel compelled to overstate their certainty about an adversary’s intentions. Their projections help win bureaucratic arguments but distort posture and signalling. Worse, adversaries adjust in response, creating a feedback loop of mutual escalation. Through seemingly objective observation, each side reinforces the other’s fears, locking into rigid paths driven more by sunk costs than actual need.(…)“ The cluelessness is so obvious I lack words for it. Zero awarenss that in fact some of this is actually the other way around and the author unknowingly depicts NATO. The delusory view of the Iraq War is too embarrassing to address further. NATO has executed the essential points of this study word-by-word . Which explains – and this is the most appalling aspect of this entire item – the 2 million dead AFU. Obviously NATO has taken these idiotic assumptions for real and based their Ukraine operations on them. The number of actual footnotes from academic research is mindboggling too and reminds me of the beyond-any-sane-explanation of the 1600 p. US Senate report on Russiagate. Which probably 5 people have ever read. To overwhelm with footnotes appears to remain a feasible tactics by think tank writers to simulate expertise, relevance and accuracy – and also as a defense mechanism against serious scrutiny. Which apparently nobody has provided for this one. This series is being edited by none other than insane, crypto-racist German Florence Gaub, who reminds me of the notorious Nazi-bride/fateful love interest in INDIANA JONES – LAST CRUSADE, “ELSA”. Did you go down the rabbit hole by checking out the work cited in the footnotes? I often find when doing that that the passages cited often don’t actually support the point which they were cited as supporting. But you’re really not supposed to check. Had no time to look into the actual sources. But it´s the first thing that crosses your mind. On the other hand it´s most likely that they abused that literature the way you suggest. Kaja Kallas The Influencer? She has the charisma of belly button discharges and nail clippings. I think the landscape of Hell depicted by Chuck Palahniuck in Damned best describes Ms. Kallas: Physical Landmarks: The landscape includes the “Dandruff Desert” and the “Mountain of Toenail Clippings,” The Atmosphere: A “roiling, surging ocean of scalding hot barf” fills the air with a constant sulfur smell, worse than garbage-laden streets Her charisma is as illusory as the Dark Matter, spoken about, but not actually detected. One more way to beat the high gas prices: drive an electric car. We drive a plug-in Prius. We charge at home (lots of solar power on the roof) for free. We have enough solar that we are net positive for the year. I heard on the radio this morning of higher than $8 gas prices in some areas. Doesn’t bother me. At most, I buy one tank of gas a year. It is rumored that Toyota will come out with a new style electric vehicle next year. We will buy one of those and then be completely gas free. Our house is all electric. We don’t even have a gas line running to the house so no worries about the price of natural gas either. High gas prices SHOULD bother you. 1. They will get built into the prices of nearly all of your goods and services 2. Some businesses will fail Judge Napolitano and frm British Ambassador Ian Proud. utube, ~22+ minutes. Ian Proud : Why Europe Rejects Aiding Trump on Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I23s7SU7LQ4 Scientists Just Broke the Solar Power Limit Everyone Thought Was Absolute A new “energy-multiplying” solar breakthrough could push efficiency beyond 100% and transform how we capture sunlight. So we just need lots of molybdenum? https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-just-broke-the-solar-power-limit-everyone-thought-was-absolute/ Last time I was up at Leadville, the Climax Mine was going strong: Climax mine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_mine And there are other large moly mines in America. And America supposedly has manufacturers making solar panels: 10 American Made Solar Panels (2026 Manufactures List) https://www.allamericanmade.com/solar-panels-made-in-usa/ So I guess in theory, this might actually be a good industry to encourage with selected tariffs, industrial policy, and incentives to help people buy American, but I get the feeling none of this happens unless the grift is aligned properly in DC. I.e., don’t hold your breath waiting for this one to happen. For some reason power generated by wind or solar is now a IDpol issue. >The AI Industry Is Lying To You Edward Zitron Wowsers… 9,500 well considered words. Moi: Some benign future will be a simulation, the reality will be something else where the past can kicked down the road is crushed. Lying to us? I’m shocked, Shocked! / ;) per the movie Casablanca: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxnpY0owPkA I suspect China will be closely watching how the blockade of the Hormuz Straits by Iran on US/Israeli allies is going to affect Taiwan, as important datapints. I can even see China strongly encouraging Iran to not let any ships bound for Taiwan to pass through. And just like that, the Taiwan straits will narrow down a mile or two, figuratevly speaking… Also, China might tell Iran that dialogue is better than war, but Iran can ask for volunteers from the Chinese diplomatic corp(se) acting on behalf of Iran, plug in to an Iranian counterpart, see if they take the offer. Apologies to @Wukchumni … I have a suggestion for the next episode of “Leavitt to Believers”. Karoline tries to crash a dinner party at a Chinese restaurant and gets embarrassingly escorted out by the owner. When asked why, the host (played by Xi Jinping) claimed that her boss (Donald) is an angry bore with bad table manners. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/25/trump-xi-beijing-china-summit.html US has caused $10tn worth of climate damage since 1990, research finds https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/25/us-climate-damage-research TSA official stresses record-high airport wait times as shutdown drags on The shutdown may force TSA to consider closing some airports until funding resumes, said Ha Nguyen McNeill, the agency’s acting administrator. She said multiple airports are experiencing callout rates higher than 40%, and air travelers are experiencing the TSA’s highest wait times ever. https://apnews.com/live/tsa-government-shutdown-ice-03-25-2026 ‘Modern-Day Royalty’: 50 Billionaire Families Have Already Pumped Over $430 Million Into Midterms “Billionaires are on track to break their $1 billion midterm spending record,” said Americans for Tax Fairness. https://www.commondreams.org/news/billionaire-spending-2026-midterms EPA walks back mercury pollution standards for coal plants https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/25/politics/iran-kharg-island-us-military-ground-troops