Links 9/2/2026

An island mysteriously appeared — then disappeared — on B.C.’s largest reservoir CBC The everything theory of mass transit Works in Progress Wallace, Idaho Held A Funeral For The I-90 Highway’s Last Stoplight Jalopnik Climate/Environment NPR spent 2 years tracking deaths from heat. We found a staggering hidden toll NPR El Niño Strengthens, Raising New Concerns for Panama Canal gCaptain Climate change, trade, and the fragility we chose to ignore Seatrade Maritime Pandemics CDC Director Fails First Test of Independence From RFK Jr. MedPage Today Water Water economics Ken Neubecker Japan Takaichi’s False Solution To Real Problems Japan Economy Watch China? Li Qiang Meets US-China Business Council Board Delegation Sinocism Chinese Shipper COSCO Collects Intel for Beijing With Concealed Equipment Reuters. “…two senior Trump administration officials said.” Xi’s 2026 SCO Agenda Inside China A Breakthrough in Copper? Warwick Powell China’s Rare Earths Duopoly ChinaTalk Meanwhile: Drone wars deepen West’s critical minerals squeeze Mining.com India India rejects court order to uphold decades-old water-sharing treaty with Pakistan CNBC Syraqistan Destroyed desalination plant worsens Gaza’s drinking water crisis Al Jazeera Israel’s Restrictions on Engine Oil Threaten Gaza’s Ability to Generate Electricity Drop Site Is Huckabee doing anything about dead Americans in West Bank? Responsible Statecraft *** US attack on wedding in Iran leaves four martyred, including children Al Mayadeen ‘Large number of US forces killed’ as Iran’s Armed Forces launch wholesale retaliation: IRGC Press TV New U.S. munition has damage radius of at least 170 metres, Airwars finds Airwars Russia secretly helping Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles FT Africa Tunisia faces severe bottled water shortage after scorching August Le Monde Darfur gold flows fuel Sudan war economy through regional smuggling routes Sudan Tribune European Disunion A single signature by Trump can remove you from the internet Il Fatto Quotidiano. Yesterday the Trump administration hit Autistici/Inventati, a European technology collective whose main activity is providing digital infrastructure, with a banking blockade with PayPal and Banca Etica closing its accounts. The two of spades against the European Union Il Petulante German Catechism Versus Memory Culture Hauntologies by Elia Ayoub European winter stockpiling lifts US LNG exports in August Reuters O Canada Carney Says Trade Talks Can Resume If US Stops ‘Throwing Shade’ Bloomberg Old Blighty Food Inflation Jumps as Higher Energy Costs Hit UK Retailers City A.M. Privatisation of water firms ‘difficult to reverse’, Burnham admits The Independent New Not-So-Cold War Trump faces huge backlash for inviting Russian finance minister to G20 talks after years of exile The Independent Is Trump wooing Russia again – and why? Al Jazeera US steps up purchases of key Russian commodity – trade official RT Russia Has the West Outgunned Policy Tensor *** Zelensky threatens to shut down civilian aviation in Russia (even as he claims it doesn’t presume targeting specific aircraft) . Must be a welcome move for Ukrainians currently experiencing round-the-clock Russian missile and drone terror. For some of them anyway. Otherwise,… https://t.co/sigJQhxioK — Leonid Ragozin (@leonidragozin) September 1, 2026 Germany blames Russia for attempted airport drone attack DW. Russia denies. The Leipzig Incident Has All The Hallmarks Of A False Flag Andrew Korybko *** Farhad Ibragimov: Türkiye is one missile deal away from crossing Russia’s red line RT Erdoğan signals more Russian-built nuclear plants in Putin talks Turkish Minute Caucasus 🔴Powerful explosions hit ammunition depot in Azerbaijan A series of powerful blasts struck an ammunition depot near Nizami village in Azerbaijan’s Goranboy district overnight, triggering a major fire at the site. Local residents were evacuated from the surrounding area as… pic.twitter.com/9mhRJBgcuw — The Caspian Post (@thecaspianpost) September 2, 2026 South of the Border Ecuador under US imperial rule has become a failed state run by drug cartels. The Ecuadorian journalist who helped expose how police are working closely with organized crime has just been murdered. Any Ecuadorian journalist who exposes the crimes of the drug-trafficking… https://t.co/cpgfybI2da pic.twitter.com/UlW7odQhWd — Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 1, 2026 Trump 2.0 US Postal Service whistleblower warns new system could disrupt midterm election voting France24 Political meddling at the Census Bureau damages the entire US statistical system Peterson Institute for International Economics *** The devastation of NSA Bahrain is a national security warning Capt. John Cordle (ret.), Military Times NEW: Rep. Brian Mast, known for controversially wearing an IDF uniform on Capitol Hill, is reportedly now being considered to replace Dan Driscoll as Secretary of the Army according to US officials. pic.twitter.com/3B0INW9BgF — Dominic Michael Tripi (@DMichaelTripi) September 2, 2026 Democrats Suck Is Socialism the New Identity Politics? Les Leopold What the Hasan Piker Freakout Is Really About Ken Klippenstein Big Brother Is Watching You Watch This ‘Digital Camouflage’ Shirt Confuses AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras 404 Media Economy Trump Ramps Up Pressure on Squeezed Refiners to Ease Pump Prices Bloomberg AI and the profits boom Michael Roberts Imperial Collapse Watch So Tired Of All The Lying Ian Welsh Gary’s Two-Week Blackout Is a Warning for America OilPrice The Road Not Taken. Aurelien AI Red Alert: OpenAI is poised to cross an AI safety redline Gary Marcus On the Loose Hyperdimensional. ‘I have met people, some of them quite well-resourced, who have told me that it is their intention to deliberately release swarms of self-sovereign agents into the world, either as a kind of performance art or out of a fanatical commitment to the notion that it is impossible for digital computation—mere mathematics, they would have you know—to ever be “unsafe.”’ Yuyuan Tantian: Anthropic Has Caught America’s Disease Geopolitechs The Future Is Not Tech-Forward Enward Ongweso Jr Guillotine Watch After a Fatal Fire, a Shaky Recovery at Housing Complex New York Times. “The Nob Hill apartments in Syracuse, N.Y., went downhill after the complex was bought by a private equity group.” Class Warfare HUD FUNDING NOTICE UPENDS HOUSING COUNSELING ASSISTANCE Shelterforce THE REMARKABLE STARBUCKS UPRISING: HAS THE LABOR MOVEMENT LEARNED ANYTHING?Chris Townshend Antidote du jour (via): See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here. “Carney Says Trade Talks Can Resume If US Stops ‘Throwing Shade’” Carney should forget it. The Trump regime and its officials can’t help themselves and will always insult Canada because they think that they are so weak. Trump himself meanwhile continues to put the boot in- https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/117198856483138040 Carney would do better spending his time talking to countries like China and India. Like relations between Russia and Europe, relations between Canada and the US have been burned down to the ground for a generation and it won’t matter which party is in power in the US. I had quite a surprise reading the first paragraph of the article about the Starbucks union drive. It began it the early 2000s and was organized by the IWW. The Industrial Workers of the World. The union that won the eight hour work day with the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912 was still around to take on Starbucks? President Wilson deported the Wobbly leadership after WWI and put the rank and file in concentration camps. I thought that, plus the Red Scare of the 1950s had finished off the IWW but now it’s a pleasant surprise to find out I was wrong. The Wobblies didn’t believe in written contracts. They liked word-of-mouth contracts and if the boss broke his word the workers went out on a wildcat strike. Maybe a revival of the IWW is just what the labor movement needs today. Spent a weekend in Iowa just before the 2016 Caucuses and one site had out-of-state Wobblies knocking doors and working the phones. Not sure, but I think the Wobbly I talked to was a lawyer. Quite honestly, didn’t seem like labor folks, more like the DSA. “The Wobblies didn’t believe in written contracts. They liked word-of-mouth contracts and if the boss broke his word the workers went out on a wildcat strike.” Staughton Lynd calls this Solidarity Unionism. Not to say that Lynd was a Wob. I heard him explain once that the IWW was too bound up in rules and procedures in its own organization. I have always had a great deal of respect for Wobblies, my Father had a friend who was a wobbly who had been tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail. It took two years for him to recover and the scars were impressive…after those two years he went back to that town and unionized it. One hell of a Man. The courage required to liberate oneself and others is considerable. “We are all leaders” is a better way of understanding the Wob and anarchist way than “We have no leaders” as implied by the name “anarchist.” Alternative link for the sunroof story. https://nypost.com/2026/08/31/business/car-sunroofs-are-spontaneously-exploding-at-a-record-rate-it-sounded-like-a-gunshot/ It says they don’t use safety glass. All car windows including roofs are made of safety glass. 2 types. 1 is just tempered meaning it breaks like the picture into tiny bits. Not like a sheet of glass that breaks into large super sharp chunks 2 is laminated safety glass which is what car windshield is because it’s stronger. My understanding was that the Safety Glass that used to be decaled onto all our car windows means laminated. But come to think of it I’ve had more than a couple of car windows broken into so that must be wrong. In any case the implication of the story is that the roof glass lacks the lamination sandwich Good news department: Because Congress is a failed institution, incapable of passing anything, and capable only of insider trading and enriching themselves, Federalism is alive and well. A “do nothing” Congress might be the better option! A couple examples: 1. AI legislation at the national level, designed to be weak and please our tech lords while pre-empting the States, is dead: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/09/02/how-silicon-valley-lost-its-war-against-state-ai-laws-01054133 Instead, the “laboratory of 50 states” will cook, and the tech meatheads will have to deal with a patchwork of regulations, some tougher than what the goons in DC would ever pass. 2. Russia sanctions bill is dead: https://thehill.com/policy/international/6064417-graham-russia-sanctions-bill-stalls-house/ Aw, what a shame! 3. Global bond rout continues. Bessent’s bazooka turns out to be a damp squib. Their impotence is our power? More like ‘Their incompetence is our power.’ I’m not as optimistic about “let’s leave it to the states.” Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Legislative_Exchange_Council https://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed Except the Supreme Court, also illegitimate, will simply declare any non-federal regulations as preempted in some way. “Privatisation of water firms ‘difficult to reverse’, Burnham admits” That’s Starmer with a northern accent for you. The UK is in a water crisis made worse by the privatization of water companies because of greed. So Burnham does his jazz hands and says how the whole thing is so difficult and would make work for him. But not to worry. Later on this year – maybe – he will come out with a 10 year plan that will let the UK get more control of water by which time Burnham will be long gone from the scene. And what really worries him is the sewerage over-spills in tourist areas affecting tourism but who cares about the locals, right? Here is an idea. You levy fines against these privatized water companies and they just shrug it off and pass the costs onto their customers. So you fine and send to jail those running those companies as if they were pro-Palestinian protestors. They would either change their behaviour or agree to sell out to the government. Difficult to reverse? Water is essential. Isn’t it? There you have a strong reason to reverse privatisation. May be the problem is that the UK no longer has the public servants required to convert that reason in a strong unimpeachable nationalisation law. Difficult to reverse? Water is essential. Isn’t it? There you have a strong reason to reverse privatisation. Even easier: make water a “national security” question — and presto, who would argue against nationalization and strong state-control when the defense of the nation and its precious fluids is at stake? Even better, one could argue the ensuing costs fall outside the usual budgetary constraints, because national security and all that. I doubt it will happen. Single Signature. Fatto Quotidiano. By the formidable Stefania Maurizi, who was part of the group of journalists who supported Julian Assange. It is worth your time, and it is in English. I promise. Notes: —Banca Etica, ahinoi. Banca Etica also has denied an account to Francesca Albanese, who has mentioned that in public. —I like the take of the Autistici on why they won’t deal in bit coin, which Yves Smith and others here at Naked Capitalism have always described as crimes in the making. —Paolo de Rosa, who founded Autistici / Inventati is highly connected, which makes one wonder who is the target here. According to other sources, he worked for Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister’s office, for quite some time as a consultant on the digital transition, which in Italy has meant some digital services that aren’t all that bad. —From one cranky rightwing source: “All’epoca lavorava già nella macchina della trasformazione digitale dello Stato: il sito ufficiale del Team per la Trasformazione Digitale lo colloca dal 23 ottobre 2017 nell’area Cloud & Data Center. Successivamente sarebbe diventato Chief Technology Officer del Dipartimento per la trasformazione digitale della Presidenza del Consiglio.” We are talking the governments of Gentiloni, Conte I, Conte II, and Draghi. So someone is trying to strike at the Italian government itself. —Meanwhile, the Italian rightwing is lighting its hair on fire, not realizing that the the Trump administration is attacking the Italian state directly by means of a cat’s paw. Hmmm. – ‘Is Socialism the New Identity Politics?’ – Les Leopold In my view Les Leopold is spot on with his analysis here. Though I think the term “socialism” is not as radioactive for younger people today, it is still negative enough to be counterproductive among the population as a whole, especially among “working class” voters (however we define them). Indeed, “democratic socialism” has lost most of its appeal in Europe where it used to be valued. We should not expect it to be sellable here, where “socialism” has always been distorted and demonized. And as Leopold points out, some of the college educated DSA crowd have pushed actual polices that are not favored by the majority (open immigration, “defunding” the police, etc.). Is there a catch-term for the actual democratic socialist policies most of us on the left favor and that benefit the majority of the population? The best I can come up with is “populism.” It is noteworthy that liberals have demonized *that* term, linking it to resentful MAGA types. Of course right-wing demagogues provide plenty of ammunition for this distortion. I think the term (and related policies) would be much more useful in the US context for uniting various groups along *class* lines. That’s probably why both liberals and conservatives have distorted its meaning. Well, I am a poor working class leftist. I think we need an easy to understand term that emphasizes creating a social safety net. But I can’t come up with one off the top of my head. Unfortunately populism is probably a term that is as toxic and hard to define as democratic socialism these days. I agree, Lena. Sometimes you just have to fight for a word. “Libertarian” was stolen from anarchists by a bunch of Randians (though Rand hated the term. Murray Bookchin always called these Randians “Propertarians” since they cared much more for property rights than human liberty. Whatever word might be chosen to represent a political view that is more pro-citizen than pro-elite, those elites will use their power over academia and media to demonize or co-opt that word. See my comment below, but I would call that the “social democrat” position. People over profit, state-subsidized medical care, transportation, and education, less military and police. It eases the burden on capital to pay living wages to labor because the state has funded the social wage. Unfortunately, it leaves the root of the problems intact, which is the private ownership of the means of production. You’ve put your finger on something really interesting in the Dems making “populism” a naughty word. I think it betrays elitist, anti-democratic principles. I identify as left of all leftest memes. Side note I meet a wobbly in Seattle years ago. He was chief on a merchant ship. He seemed OG as he was in his 60’s and this was in 94. He addressed most as “fellow worker”. “This ‘Digital Camouflage’ Shirt Confuses AI-Powered Surveillance Cameras” You wonder how well they would work in Hawaii with people wearing bright Hawaiian shirts. Re: Les Leopold on the DSA: Les Leopold’s piece on DSA has at its center a cute, if not new, idea, namely that the jargon and slogans of DSA represent in-group signaling, and that the in-group in question is college graduates. I even agree with its conclusion, that DSA is not a party of labor, and that one is needed. But it fails to make its case very well. Leopold shows DSA party pillars and compares them to polling data. What the data scream, however, is not how out-of-touch DSA is with with working class, but that it is much more in line with the electorate in general than are the two major parties. As best as I can make out, the party platforms of the Republicans and Democrats contain: unlimited genocide on the third world; performative partisan cruelty; intensified exploitation of workers; no action on climate change; full-speed ahead capitalism. Has anyone polled these positions? I think its only fair to compare. As a socialist, I am often dismayed by DSA. But in a country the population of which is and has long been essentially social-democratic in its positions, theirs are the populist positions. For instance, the stuff about police abolition is a canard. As the article points out, 58% of the public supported major police reforms. The public, broadly, supports re-directing funding away from punitive and militarized approaches to social problems and towards more nurturant solutions, from domestic to foreign policy; its only when you slap those PMC slogans on it that it becomes unpopular. The DSAs platform is hardly socialism, call it what you will. Anton Pannekoek would’ve called it “organized capitalism”, which is in the class interest of downwardly mobile intellectuals and would-be imperial managers. But a critique of it should not have as its premise that it makes them unelectable. Adolph Reed, the socialist anti-identitarian, has said that the electoral sphere is where movements consolidate what they’ve won. That it what I see in the DSA candidates campaigns: Palestinian solidarity and a bravely renewed focus on the economic base of working class life. The problem with DSA is that it is a part of the Democratic Party, as Patrick Lawrence has recently written. I commented above on Leopold’s article before I saw your comment here. I agree with you, but I read Leopold as making basically the same argument. The issue is communication of actual policy positions to voters vs. the use of terminology and rhetoric that undermines that goal and can be used by one’s enemies. The article you cite by Patrick Lawrence is an even better statement on this issue. In that piece Lawrence says this: “You have to listen to those you wish to lead and be where they are, not where you wish them to be. Zohran Mamdani is an excellent case in point.” El-Sayed is perhaps an even better example, as the post by Klippenstein above nicely illustrates. Unlike Klippenstein though, I think that many voters, especially in general elections, can be manipulated by ads or demagogic politicians highlighting phrases like “defund the police” or “abolish ice” – or the word “socialist” – divorced from articulate explanations like the one from El-Sayed he provides. As Lawrence says, you have to meet people where they are. Yes, Klippenstein’s piece articulates my concerns much better than me. I agree with you about communication. Labels and jargon, especially when intended to signal belonging to an in-group, are going to a) alienate some people and b) become easily misrepresented. Socialist organizers have long run into the fact that you can explain just what you propose in terms of policy and meet broad agreement, but if you label it “socialism”, you turn people off. Well said. They certainly play by the Dems playbook for always asking for money. I was interested in their platform was about a number of years ago and since then lots of asks for funds. Baby steps perhaps to the real deal? I have encountered two old men who resembled Trump to some degree, as both of them aged and decompensated (What an anodyne term!) they became more impulsive, more angry and more resentful. Seeing an 80 year old kicking, biting and screaming is disconcerting… I believe we can expect the same from Trump as he continues to disintegrate. Hoo Boy. European winter stockpiling lifts US LNG exports in August Reuters For some reason winter stockpiling of NG is now on the news too frequently. It might well be that Europe buying more in August than in July was related, not with winter stockpiling, but because drought and less cooling water for nuclear energy production, less wind turbine production, both factors and/or any other factor i haven’t imagined. Did Reuters got satisfied with winter stockpiling without further research? ‘@DMichaelTripi Dominic Michael Tripi @DMichaelTripi NEW: Rep. Brian Mast, known for controversially wearing an IDF uniform on Capitol Hill, is reportedly now being considered to replace Dan Driscoll as Secretary of the Army according to US officials.’ I say let him. That way he can be the US Secretary of the Army while for the Israelis, he can be still on their books as being ‘on detached service.’ Is This Quirky British Man the Future of Trumpism? NYT archive Steve Hilton… quite a piece of work! Didnt know he was an invasive species. Maybe the baseball player was better? Bercerra is no prize, either. Islands appearing and disappearing? Someone check on Oceanic flight 815! Rain showers today in Sonoma County… Not good news for the wine grape growers. They are already facing high input costs for Fertilizer and fungicides, the disappearance of their largest buyer (Canada), a labor force terrified by ICE and a dearth of tourists. Now rain, three weeks before the harvest. The operations that can afford the big blowers (Towed behind trucks, powered by LNG) will be deploying them, those that can’t will likely lose a lot of their crop. Crop insurance will help to a degree but it’s going to be a very rough year for the growers. And next year promises to be worse. Re Zelensky threatens to shut down civilian aviation in Russia — Leonid Ragozin UKR has been targeting RU airports for a long time (e.g., the accidental downing of the Azerbaijan jet in December 2024), so this is nothing new. Anyway RU’s travel season ended on 1 September when the whole country went back to school. The next small travel spike will be in early November (school break), then a huge upturn in late December for the winter holidays. So why announce this now? Perhaps it’s just more Zelensky blathering. OTOH, if UKR seriously plans to use drones to target civilian jets, that will truly be one step beyond. Even ISR/USA and Iran have never stooped to that level, despite possessing the requisite technology. If this is UKR’s plan going forward, I can think of no better way to unite RU citizens around whatever dreadful retaliatory steps the Kremlin might take, and no better way to make UKR’s current regime an international pariah. I still don’t understand why the CIA director used a C-17 to visit Moscow. Simplicius’ explanation doesn’t convince me. Neither do Korybko or Bryen: https://asiatimes.com/2026/09/ratcliffes-offer-ukraine-and-natos-future/ https://korybko.substack.com/p/ukraine-might-be-planning-a-sustained Label me confused. That said, I do think that we’re approaching the end game in the RU-UKR conflict. This is the beginning of the end; which is exactly what Putin hinted back in May. I also note a surge in weird explosions and fires in various European defense-related factories. One or two incidents, whatever. But now I see reports every other day or so. I ain’t pointin’ mah fingerz any which direction, I’m just sayin’…..