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The Business of Ballet Is Not What You Think The Dance Lens (Micael T)
On the Role of Theory in Biology Asimov Press (Micael T)
Earth is tearing apart beneath the Pacific Northwest Science Daily (Kevin W)
Climate/Environment
The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases Nature
A follow-up look at Berkeley Earth’s record-hot August, this time on a more intuitive scale.
Relative to the 1850–1900 August average, August 2026 comes in at +1.691°C globally — nearly 1.7°C above the late-19th-century average. https://t.co/A3hPWDauQ7 pic.twitter.com/u59k2Za1L5
— The Global Warmer🔥 (@TheGlobalWarmer) September 24, 2026
Heat waves on land are starting earlier and developing faster, global analysis reveals PhysOrg
As water grows scarce, Syrian farmers test soil-free agriculture Sana
Nigeria faces the world’s highest projected death toll from super El Niño heat: what could save lives The Conversation
Rare meteotsunami hits southern Brazil without an earthquake, flooding streets and dragging boats TCD
Sharks, sea snakes and weird fish: El Niño brings unusual marine life to Southern California Long Beach Post
Water
Water scarcity stirs debate over who owns Brazil’s rivers Reuters
China?
Trump and Xi strike cordial tone at summit amid underlying tensions NPR
Diplomacy or ‘diplotainment’? Key takeaways from the Trump-Xi summit in Washington Guardian (Kevin W)
Philippines accuses China of obstructing resupply mission in South China Sea Reuters
Japan
Japanese government bond yields hit new high as global sell-off continues Financial Times
India
India rejects OIC references to Jammu and Kashmir, urges group to counsel Pakistan TBS
Four civilians killed in suspected attack by Myanmar-based rebels in Manipur Indian Express
Southeast Asia
Thai authorities probe Chabad-Lubavitch centers over Israeli land-grab network The Cradle. KK: “They really do believe the rules don’t apply to them.”
Flooding in Bangkok: Disaster zoner declared following heavy rain Aljazeera. Only a bit of street flooding where I am, albeit severe where it did occur.
Africa
Climate change is fuelling African conflict – governments are developing a shared response The Conversation
Somalia on famine watch as floods loom and aid runs dry Middle East Online
When rains shift and farms become unsafe: Dangers of Nigeria’s changing farming calendar The Guardian (Nigeria)
Fighting widens across Ethiopia as Tigray clashes escalate Aljazeera
South of the Border
Argentina’s poverty rises to 32 percent under Milei with more pain forecast Aljzaeera
US weighs new limits on Cuban travel at the UN as Havana decries Trump’s economic squeeze Independent
European Disunion
Europe’s Diesel Shock Is Moving Into Borrowing Costs, Permutable Analysis Finds Hedge Fund Alpha
Two Weeks, Two Thousand Jobs: Eastern Germany’s Chemical Industry Hits a Breaking Point BY
Europe Is Rebuilding the Magnet Supply Chain’s “Missing Middle” Leon Liao (Chuck L)
French far left sparks backlash with debt ‘fire’ plan Financial Times
France’s soils hit September drought record as dry weather threatens autumn crops Intelinews
Norway central bank raises interest rate, may hike again RTE
Old Blighty
Factory energy use crashes to record low Telegraph
Food supply threatened by climate change say national farmers union Stourbridge News
Israel v. The Resistance
Gaza suffers world’s worst ever economic crisis: UN Agence France-Presse
Netanyahu blames ‘juvenile delinquents’ for violence in occupied West Bank Aljazeera
Turkey warns Greece-Cyprus-Israel power cable needs Ankara’s approval Al-Monitor. BWAHAHA
Iran War
Trump Rejects Iran Ceasefire, Expects Renewed Bombing After Midterms Wall Street Journal
Iran sees air, land travel chaos as US sanctions bite France24
𝗜𝗿𝗮𝗻'𝘀 𝗪𝗮𝗿 𝗗𝗼𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝗮 𝗣𝘆𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗱. 𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗽𝗲𝘅 𝗪𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱.
Any regional airport that turns away an Iranian airliner now sits at the top of Iran's war doctrine.
I am sharing how I read the war, so you can follow along as things… https://t.co/hXqSzupRpS pic.twitter.com/8XJ2g7cKen
— AJ Signal (@aj_geo_analysis) September 25, 2026
⚓️‼️ US Fleet Update
"Sailors" and "Marines" are typically found in warships.
Somehow 37 of them became casualties in recent weeks, and have now been added to the butcher's bill.
This strongly suggests something rather serious occurred on one or more US Navy warships. https://t.co/QonAglcf0J
— Will Schryver (@imetatronink) September 25, 2026
* * * Saudi Grand Mufti tells troops to be ready to sacrifice their lives fighting Houthis Straits TimesYou can’t rent victory People’s Art of War (Micael T)
France to Send Soldiers to Saudi Arabia to Help Secure Energy Sites New York Times
AnsarAllah’s Unperceived Advantages Against Saudi Arabia Conflicts Forum
Yemen’s civil war returns and overwhelms hospitals with ‘a very dangerous situation’ Independent
Syraqistan
Pakistani forces kill Afghan Taliban fighters in border escalation Aljazeera
Kyrgyzstan faces hard choices on a half-empty fuel tank East Asia Forum
Iraqi panel proposes Kurdistan fuel overhaul amid shortages Shafaq
New Not-So-Cold War
🚨 BREAKING: Ukrainian drones have struck the Perm oil refinery in Russia, with a fire at the facility.
Perm is one of six major Russian refineries that together account for roughly half of the country’s diesel production, according to Reuters. The reported strike comes as… pic.twitter.com/SGXDSqu0b3
— World Conflict (@WorldConflict_X) September 25, 2026
Russia ties Black Sea grain deal with Ukraine to halt in oil refinery strikes Middle East Eye
Russia recruiting up to 25,000 North Koreans to assemble drones: What the data shows Euronew
‘From Hell’ Already Arrived Valdai Club (Micael T)
You can (not) escape Zinderneuf
Russia’s Enduring Role in Latin America and Its Implications for U.S. Hemispheric Interests RAND. Robin K: “This reads like a parody with a total lack of awareness that they’re doing it with mirrors. And these are supposed to be our, um, serious research people.”
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
New Mexico jury finds Facebook liable for deceiving users about privacy protections Associated Press (Kevin W)
Imperial Collapse Watch
8 Sailors in U.S.S. Lincoln Strike Group Attempted Suicide, Navy Says New York Times (Robin K)
Energy Department will spend $2 billion to squeeze more electricity from the aging power grid Associated Press
Trump 2.0
Trump’s polls sink further in warning sign for GOP The Hill
Another Kid Rock Festival Gets Cancelled Due to No One Buying Tickets Metal Injection. Micael T: “Freedom Fest, a MAGA-backed event”
Tariffs
Americans and Canadians united in hating Trump’s tariffs, poll finds Independent
UK food exports slump as US tariffs hit products like salmon Business Times
Economy
VLCC Rates Hit Record $1.27 Million a Day as Oman Transfer Capacity Maxes Out OilPrice
How the Panama Canal Became a 50-Mile Waterway With a $5 Million Ticket Price Wall Street Journal. No archived link yet.
Big business warns Trump against diesel export ban in joint letter CNBC
The FT’s indifference to economic madness Richard Murphy
Mr. Market is Chewing His Knuckles
The bond market and stock market are both sounding the alarm that a crash may be coming This is Money
Iranian Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf: Enjoy 5.1% Yield on 10-Year U.S. Treasuries WANA
US mortgage rates breach 7% as affordability pressures mount Financial Times
AI
Why do AI company logos look like buttholes? VelvetShark(Micael T). Still germane. Truth in advertising?
Oracle’s ‘force majeure’ notice raises questions about the company’s ability to deliver on AI data centers Business Insider. Conor had a story on this yesterday but with a less obvious headline.
Oracle credit default swaps hit record high as AI debt worries mount Seeking Alpha
Hyperscalers are hiding a massive secret about uninstalled GPUs | Ed Zitron Tech Report. Zitron has been discussing this issue for a while but now it is ripening, or more accurately, rotting.
The Left Is Right About AI American Conservative (resilc)
OpenAI has paused all training, evaluation and inference with tool-use for its most capable models after a model was able to gain unauthorized access to the internet during RL training on September 20. https://t.co/PON9r82mUS pic.twitter.com/wPtdisRRhC
— prinz (@deredleritt3r) September 26, 2026
‘Eat the rich, save the planet’: climate protesters call out big tech’s disconnect from reality Guardian
Guillotine Watch
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes reportedly to be transferred to halfway home next year Guardian
Class Warfare
Everyone Will Feel the $1 Trillion Cut in Medicaid A Healthy Dialogue With Julie Donohue JAMA (Robin K)
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
1800 pound golden retriever pic.twitter.com/pP0Nekpsd9
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) September 21, 2026
A second bonus:
This is how male antelopes walk during mating season to attract females.
That walk is impossible to resist.
I’m impressed! 😄 pic.twitter.com/eJJbD1cbFL— The Figen (@TheFigen_) September 18, 2026
And a third:
people act like cats only wanna sleep at home. take them to the beach once and watch them discover an entirely new personality https://t.co/FQ7qSKrzXT
— Antidepressant Content (@depressionlesss) September 19, 2026
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Antelope walk–
Cute, but wrong music. Warning: disco incoming.
It reminds me of a girl walking down a street wearing high heels.
I thought you might enjoy some Aussie music. ;)
Prime candidate for the Ministry of Silly Walks!
That antelope is doing that walk to attract females with. Can we really have a go at them for this? Ever heard of that African tribe where the females choose their men causing those men to go all out in a performance for their affections?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ynLjA3krU2I
Well, with Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor in mind, any cat is definitely going to feel liberated? This could go on for quite a while.
“Netanyahu blames ‘juvenile delinquents’ for violence in occupied West Bank”
I suppose since nobody believes the crap that Israel comes out with, Netanyahu is not even bothered coming up with anything even halfway believable. So are these ‘juvenile delinquents’ the equivalent of ‘a few bad apples’? If they were ‘juvenile delinquents’ then the Israeli police would arrest them and take them to court. Instead we see the Israeli police and IDF protecting these thugs as they go on the rampage and the majority of them look like full grown adults. No wonder all those countries got up and left not wanting to hear this drivel. And as was seen in videos, you had Israels wearing those kippahs walking around the UN desks and writing down the names of the countries that had left because that is a totally normal thing.
Currently the lead headline in the FT –
Foreign capital flows into US stocks hit record as appetite for debt fades
https://app.ft.com/content/a1a1318b-8051-4539-a485-5a4e1d021578
Because of course they are. And they’ll all run for exits at once when the crash comes, whether the triggering failure is diesel fuel and transport networks, AI, war, sovereign debt, or whatever.
Hard to imagine how to maximize the jeopardy and scale of the resulting economic collapse more effectively. It could make 2008 look like a walk in the park.
It’s a human tragedy that our best hope to keep the planet from becoming even more unfriendly to our civilization is an epic crash. Like an alcoholic, we’ll have to hit rock bottom to knock us out of denial.
I think that part of the fault is the economists that our civilization relies on that take it as a matter of religious faith that economies must always and forever more expand. You try telling that that perhaps it would be better if long term that economies contract as we do not live on a planet with infinite resources and they would look at you as if you were talking a foreign language.
Hitting rock bottom doesn’t stop a lot of Alcoholics from taking another drink, as the 500 deaths per day attributed to Booze in the USA makes clear.
Sanity is defined by behavior and it is increasingly obvious that Western “Leaders” are not sane.
HTML code for this link needs a fix up:
“French far left sparks backlash with debt ‘fire’ plan”
FT — Won’t somebody think of the rentiers? 🙄
Matt Taibbi’s latest.
File under No Longer Free Press:
Live Free Speech Discussion, 2:00 PM ET Today: Interview With Russian Journalist Dimitri Simes
I’ll be interviewing Russian journalist Dimitri Simes today about one of the more interesting (and disturbing) free speech cases of recent times, now extended across multiple administrations
https://www.racket.news/p/live-free-speech-discussion-200-pm
utube interview:
Live Free Speech Discussion, 2:00 PM ET Today: Interview With Russian Journalist Dimitri Simes
Racket News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n18U-5PdgnY
‘@WorldConflict_X
World Conflict
🚨 BREAKING: Ukrainian drones have struck the Perm oil refinery in Russia, with a fire at the facility.
Perm is one of six major Russian refineries that together account for roughly half of the country’s diesel production, according to Reuters. The reported strike comes as Russia’s refining sector faces major disruption from repeated drone attacks, while the Trump administration has been considering—but the White House has denied preparing—a 90-day U.S. diesel export ban.’
There is not a doubt in my mind that such attacks are only possible with help from the US. With world diesel supplies starting to go critical which will have an effect in the US, for what possible motive would Trump have to authorize such attacks? Does he think that the Russians will just quit this war and give him a victory that he can take into the Midterms? Is it the CIA going rogue on him? But it will be the Ukraine that will pay a price for this attack.
1800 pound golden retriever
Ever since YouTube, Twitter & co have existed, I have stumbled on quite a number of videos showing animals enthusiastically playing with balls: dogs, cats, horses, bulls, foxes, bears, tigers, squirrels, bumblebees…
One could philosophically ponder whether those living creatures enthralled by spherical objects are expressing their joy at meeting the divine as represented by the perfect shape überhaupt.
Or perhaps there is a deep evolutionary advantage in running after, kicking, and trying to control a bouncing object that cannot get unbalanced and that presents no possibility for a tight grip.