Where Do Aspiring Actors Go to Cure Burnout? Clown School. Wall Street Journal (Micael T)
A Dream and a Passion: Mendelssohn’s Revival of a Bach Masterpiece Chamber Music Society (Micael T)
Call for ‘national treasure’ protections to cover natural history specimens Museum Association (Micael T)
How Did the Alps Develop Their Own Architecture? Architecture and Tradition (Micael T)
Your dislike of eating bugs may be 9,000 years old Science Daily (Kevin W)
When Your Partner Ignores the Collapse Collapse 2050
Climate/Environment
The ‘Asian water tower’ is starting to wobble, computer simulations show South China Morning Post (guurst)
The Velocity Hazard – Why the Rate of Warming Trumps Absolute Temperature Thresholds Climate Uncovered
Scientists find a huge hidden ice reservoir beneath Utah’s mountains Science Daily (Kevin W)
The Vibrations from Hell Ogredragon
Nepal
Nepal warns of new flood risk as hard-hit border region turns to ‘swampland’ BBC
China?
China has caught up in space. And that changes everything, everywhere. Kevin Walmsley
China’s super-rich fled Singapore. Now they want to come back CNBC
Hilarity, unease and relief: games show China is not over the finish line in humanoid robot race Guardian
Africa
How did a British, Rothschilds banker end up running South Africa? Part 1 Political Economist
O Canada
Florida tourism dips as Canadian visitors drop 14% NewsNation
South of the Border
Financial subjugation of Venezuela Venezuelanalysis
US secures majority control of 65B barrels of Venezuelan oil: Trump Anadolu Agency
Venezuela anuncia un histórico acuerdo con el Gobierno de los Estados Unidos, que tendrá un impacto significativo en el renacimiento de nuestra nación. pic.twitter.com/aIogqZOVA4
— Delcy Rodríguez (@delcyrodriguezv) August 29, 2026
European Disunion
Expensive gas is dragging Europe into stagflation.Vzglayd via machine translation
Be sure to click thorough to read the full tweet:
The Ghosts of Boshirov and Petrov Haunt Europe
The Telegraph is raising the alarm: Moscow has opened a branch in the EU to deal with “hot spots.” According to Western intelligence, the GRU (Russian military intelligence) no longer bothers its officers with English architecture.… pic.twitter.com/qQeEFXAZvB
— 🇷🇺 STANISLAV KRAPIVNIK 🇷🇺 (@STANISKRAPIVNIK) August 23, 2026
Old Blighty
The race to stop England running out of water BBC
‼️‼️🇺🇸🇬🇧🇫🇰🇦🇷 BIG | Washington is reportedly turning even the Falkland Islands into leverage in its campaign to force European allies to rearm faster, warning London that continued U.S. diplomatic backing may no longer be taken for granted if Britain fails to spend more on… pic.twitter.com/MVLJatUZrr
— Visioner (@visionergeo) August 28, 2026
Israel v. The Resistance
Democratic senators demand Israeli government halt West Bank settlement expansion plans The Hill
Amb. Chas Freeman: Crumbling on All Sides: The Staggering Reality of Israel’s Multi-Front War Dialogue Works. One can hope.
Stark accusations of “engineering scarcity” and silencing humanitarian work
Athena Rayburn, Executive Director of the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), told the UN Security Council that Israel was deliberately engineering scarcity in the Gaza Strip and… pic.twitter.com/R8Xp5lVw3f
— Ramy Abdu| رامي عبده (@RamAbdu) August 28, 2026
Iran War
Trump’s ‘economic D-Day’ against Iran is doomed to failure Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph (Robin K)
Iran transfers $7.5B in oil revenues to central bank despite US naval blockade: Report Anadolu Agency
Bessent targets banks in UAE over Iran ties Politico
Vali Nasr told The Telegraph that Iran’s real demand is much narrower than some of its public rhetoric: Tehran wants Washington to implement the June MOU, including the Iran-Oman mechanism for managing Hormuz and the release of frozen Iranian assets. Qatar could be central to… pic.twitter.com/FatPh6uuxb
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 29, 2026
Russia says it can now attack UK bases anywhere.
If Russia strikes both Akrotiri and Diego Garcia Airbases it would end armaments to Israel and resupply to USN fleets on the Gulf Embargo.
Russia could end two genocides, open Hormuz, and save the global economy from economic… https://t.co/zuaji6xy6w
— Kathleen Tyson (@Kathleen_Tyson_) August 28, 2026
US Hormuz demining operation resulted in only 11 mines being swept
More than 200 mine-like objects were swept from the main lane, according to Axios, citing US officials. However, only 11 were actual mines.
President Trump announced this week that the US had cleared the Strait… pic.twitter.com/0oLkYfBfzF
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) August 29, 2026
Iran Just Hit America’s “Safe” Haven | Photo Evidence Daily Mail, YouTube. Damage to Jordan bases
Turkiye
Mecca Agreement gives Turkey new leverage and risk in equal measure Middle East Eye
New Not-So-Cold War
CIA chief’s Moscow trip is a frightening signal Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T:
EU tragicomedy. This one is hilarious thanks to its complete absence of cause-consequence analysis. It is also deeply tragedic because it doesn’t lay out the cause-consequence of the war and therefore blames
Putler for everything. Billions and weapons from Sweden to Ukraine to kill Russians have nothing to do with it.Eight Hours in Moscow: What History Tells Us About CIA Director Ratcliffe’s Secret Mission Kautilya
Why Russia Is Winning Sonar21
UKRAINE FEARS RUSSIA IS ABOUT TO DO ANOTHER INCURSION FROM NORTH – w/ Andrei Martianov YouTube
Russia’s New Iskander-1000 Extended Range Ballistic Missile Sees First Ever Combat Test Military Watch
Germany plans rapid-response task force to counter hybrid threats in Baltic Sea Anadolu Agency
Four EU foreign ministers reopen the fight over Russia’s €210bn BNE
Sweden will radically change its espionage methods in Russia Vzglayd via machine translation (Micael T)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Ring Says New Encryption Limits What It Can Give Police The Verge
T.S.A. Abruptly Scraps Its New Private-Security Model New York Times (Kevin W)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Iran War Expert: “They Want America to Destroy Itself!” Young Men Will Be Trapped | Robert Pape YouTube. resilc: “Start 1:46:20 violent populism.” I started at about 1:30:00 and found the runup informative.
The Fall Of The Religion Of Progress John Michael Greer (Chuck L)
John Mearsheimer: Russia & Iran – The West’s Escalation Trap Glenn Diesen
Another Needless Casualty of War… RIP Nigel Larry Johnson
Trump 2.0
Donald Trump Puts Himself as Greatest President Ever Newsweek (resilc)
Corporate America Cut Big Checks to Trump. Now CEOs Fear Subpoenas Are Coming. Wall Street Journal
Hegseth Blocks Promotions of Four Army Officers as Purge Widens New York Times. Not paywalled.
Trump Postal Service board nominees held up by Republican senator over mail delay concerns The Hill
Judge rejects Trump’s newest bid to fight hush money conviction in federal court CNN
Trump Truth Social post on Lake America Truth Social (Kevin W)
Tariffs
Trump is writing a most favored nation clause that nobody signed The Hill (Kevin W)
Immigration
Milo Yiannopoulos, a Right-Wing Provocateur, Is Arrested by ICE New York Times (Robin K)
GOP Clown Car
NBC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: PETE HEGSETH IS TALKING ABOUT A POSSIBLE RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2028, SOURCES SAY NBC (resilc)
Grand Jury Says DeSantis “Misused” $10 Million in Medicaid Funds New Republic (resilc)
Our No Longer Free Press
One question, Ms. Fahimi: Does the union still stand by press freedom? Multipolar via machine translation (Micael T)
US ‘Terror’ Label on Palestine Action Threatens Speech Consortium News
Economy
How the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Works Brian Potter (Micael T)
Financialization of Farmland: How Farmers Are Staying Afloat as Crop Prices Plunge New York Times (resilc)
Mr. Market is Moody
Hawkish Kevin Warsh hints Fed will raise rates if inflation does not fall soon Financial Times
Expect a Fed Rate Hike. Odds Jump to 60 Percent on Warsh’s Speech Michael Shedlock
Warsh Speaks, Treasury Yields Jump, 6-Month to 3-Year Treasury Yields Spike Wolf Richter
AI
Bill Gates Declares An AI Pandemic Jordan Schachtel
How to spot AI writing Economist. I rarely use dashes but they have always been em-dashes. A dash is not a hyphen.
How Much of the Internet Is Written With AI? Pew Research
How Meta’s Plan To Replace Workers With AI Agents Fell Apart Reuters
5 lessons from the OpenAI / Hugging Face incident Gary Marcus and Zack Korman
Class Warfare
The Thesis of Political Capitalism The Ideas Letter (Chuck L)
Man sets himself on fire in lobby of Google office building in Lower Manhattan New York Post (resilc)
Buying a used car? For many employees, that’s only possible with a loan.Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
Citadel Imposes Two-Year Non-Competes Even on Some Analysts Bloomberg (Micael T)
The Culture of Repair Already Exists. It Just Wasn’t Funded Non-Profit Quarterly
Why Americans are not working Flowing Data
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
😃😍😂A male gorilla tries his best to reconcile with his angry wife. pic.twitter.com/amoaOeBKYm
— Amazing Nature (@AmazingNature00) August 27, 2026
A second bonus:
A dog wants to play with the small rodent, who is determined not to be distracted from its work. pic.twitter.com/U8vgR3pBDW
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 26, 2026
And a third:
Corvids are among the most playful animals.
This is a raven playing in the snow with a human. pic.twitter.com/v6McEKpali
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) August 26, 2026
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
