Here are the 2025 Ig Nobel Prize winners Improbable (Micael T)

Scientists Discover Why Alcohol Blocks Liver Regeneration, Even After You Quit SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

What to Know About Mirror Life Nautlius (Micael T)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Climate/Environment

How Climate Change Is Increasing Landslide Risk Worldwide Scientific American

The island that banned hives: can honeybees actually harm nature? Guardian (Kevin W)

Forests Are Raining Plastic: New Study Reveals Shocking Pollution SciTech Daily (Chuck L)

Texas Oil Boom Spawns a Toxic Crisis of the Industry’s Own Making Bloomberg

China?

Chinese readout of Xi-Trump phone call on Friday Pekinology. Translation; English version not yet published. Chinese readouts are normally detailed. Seems thin for a 90 minute conversation.

While entertaining, this is just a wet noodle lashing. China has not restricted trade and buys weapons:

Poland’s Attempt To Blackmail China Will Hurt Itself Most Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)

Mass protest expected in Philippines capital amid public fury over alleged corruption in government projects Guardian

Indonesia’s ill-timed return to the financial brink. Bank Indonesia under pressure as Prabowo’s fast and loose spending stirs ghosts of 1997–98 meltdown Asia Times

Antipodes

NZ Government’s Economic Stewardship Challenged by Big GDP Slump Bloomberg

Africa

Children are bound to die’: Corruption, aid cuts and violence fuel a hunger crisis in South Sudan Independent

Tensions are escalating in eastern Congo as the M23 rebel group and government forces dig in along the frontlines — threatening fragile peace efforts AfricaNews

European Disunion

Professors of Propaganda: How the EU’s Jean Monnet Programme corrodes academia Thomas Fazi, MCC Brussels (Chuck L)

France’s big protest: Who’s on strike, why and what’s next? Aljazeera

‘Resilience factories’ German Foreign Policy. Micael T: “I read ‘startup and I think bezzle.”

If it’s a shame about royalty, we must abolish the monarchy immediately Aftonbladet via machine translation (Micael T)

Old Blighty

Public sector borrowing in August has jumped to its highest level in five years, raising fears of huge tax hikes in the autumn to balance the books City AM

The big story from Bank of England is an easing in tightening to avert massive losses Sky

UK food industry shows shocking lack of contingency plans for water shortages Food and Drink Technology

I have never seen quality as bad as this’: Scottish farmers fear ‘financial crisis’ as early harvest takes its toll Business Green

Israel v. the Resistance

The Israeli Threat to America John Mearsheimer

Israel “falsifying” Palestinian rapes to further Gaza genocide Asa Winstanley

* * *

The high cost of the US supporting the Israel attack on Qatar. No doubt this deal was in the works for a while, but one has to think the strike overcame any remaining doubts or sticking points:

Shockwave as Houthi drone hits hotel; Qatar attack triggers new Mideast alliance Janta Ka Reporter, YouTube

Israel On Notice? Iran Launches ‘MYSTERIOUS’ Missiles After Saudi’s Atomic Bomb Surprise Times of India, YouTube

* * *

* * *

Turkey warns Cyprus’ Israeli air defense system could ‘destabilise island’ TNA (Kevin W)

* * *

Syraqistan

Syria risks rupturing as armed camps face off across the Euphrates Reuters (Robin K)

New Not-So-Cold War

SITREP 9/19/25: “Russian Incursion” Scare Heats Up as Enfeebled NATO Hobbles to Respond Simplicius

EU floats plan to use frozen Russian assets for Ukraine loan, bypassing a Hungary veto Reuters

Deep strike: Ukrainian drones hit major Russian oil plant 1,300 km from front lines TVP World

* * *

Ukraine’s Fight at Home: The Battle Against Corruption Is Essential to the War Against Russia
Foreign Affairs. Robin K: “‘Lately, Ukraine’s people have also had to pressure their government in matters of domestic politics.’ Damn, I’d really like to know how they did that so it could be tried in the US.”

EU to encourage Ukrainians to return home RT (Kevin W)

A New Soft Power Ploy By Putin Nomea (Micael T)

Poland border closure choking China-EU rail trade Asia Times (Kevin W)

Czech ammo lifeline for Ukraine comes under fire at home Politico (Kevin W)

Roundabouts or tree trunks: How the Baltic states should protect themselves from an invasion Overton via machine translation

Caucasus

Engineering Peace? Anatol Lieven and Artin DerSimonian, New Left Review (Robin K)

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Samsung Announces Plans to Plaster Your Smart Fridge With Digital Advertisements Futurism (Kevin W). Shades of the fridge in Philip K. Dick’s Ubik asking to be paid in order to open the door. It has to spy on you or otherwise harvest your data to target ads effectively, so doubly offensive.

Imperial Collapse Watch

The UN at 80 Warwick Powell

Your First Call After You Shoot Someone New Yorker (Robin K)

Trump 2.0

USDA’s DEI Purge: How Trump and Rollins are reshaping American agriculture Investigate Midwest (Robin K)

Antifa hasn’t existed since 1933. That makes Trump’s attack on it even more menacing Globe and Mail (Dr. Kevin)

US looks to state-backed TSMC model for Intel turnaround Nikkei. Since the US leadership class and even more so the Trump team can’t manage its way out of a paper bag, I am not holding my breath.

Bureau of Labor Statistics postpones key data report Axios. Inflation.

Judge throws out Trump suit against New York Times The Hill

“Unacceptable”: Prominent U.S. Senators Demand FDA Provide Names of Troubled Foreign Drugmakers Skirting Import Bans ProPublica (Robin K)

Immigration

Trump Says the U.S. Will Institute $100,000 Fee for Skilled Worker Visas New York Times

From a comment by ChrisPacific (shortened) who notes the reporting on this change is generally lousy:

Linking to this (the original source) on the ongoing fee story about H-1Bs, since the reporting on it seems more than usually bad:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/restriction-on-entry-of-certain-nonimmigrant-workers/…..

So the key points are:
– It will now cost $100k to apply for an H-1B visa
– This rule is in force for 12 months and will cease to apply unless renewed (these two points are being incorrectly reported in some places as a $100k annual fee)
– If you are well connected, you can get the government to agree to an exemption on either an individual, company or industry basis.

Assuming this goes ahead, it’s going to kill the Infosys/Wipro model pretty much dead (not that anybody will shed tears for it). It would probably also harm the big US tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft, except that Trump claims they’re supportive, so if he’s not blowing smoke then that probably means they have their Section 2c exemptions lined up already.

As for smaller businesses (namely any without a hotline to the Secretary of Homeland Security) H-1B will be pretty much dead for them as well.

Charlie Kirk

Charlie Kirk Update and, As Predicted, Europe Snapbacks on Iran Larry Johnson

Our No Longer Free Press

Calls to Boycott Disney Explode After ABC Submits to FCC Threats by Ousting Jimmy Kimmel Common Dreams

Why Jimmy Kimmel’s First Amendment rights weren’t violated – but ABC’s would be protected if it stood up to the FCC and Trump The Conversation

Jon Stewart’s Post-Kimmel Primer on Free Speech in the Glorious Trump Era Daily Show, YouTube

Why Are Right-Wing Comedians ‘Deafeningly Silent’ on Jimmy Kimmel? Zeteo

Mr. Market is Moody

Foreign holdings of US Treasuries surge to all-time high in July, China’s sink Reuters

Margin Debt Has Soared. It’s the Skunk at Wall Street’s Garden Party Barrons

A Japanese debt crisis is closer than you think Asia Times

Monopoly

“Yikes”: Internal emails reveal Ticketmaster helped scalpers jack up prices, FTC says ars technica (Kevin W)

Class Warfare

Sports fans, this demonstrates that BlackRock’s vector of power is not via the companies BlackRock invests in nearly entirely via index funds where these funds are obligatory buyers, but governments:

The world is about to have trillionaires. Enough is enough Jacobin (Micael T)

Top 10% account for nearly half of all consumer spending News Nation Now

Migrant farmworkers sue seed-corn company over wages and housing Iowa Capital Dispatch (Robin K)

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus (Chuck L):

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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