News roundup, 7 Feb 2025

- Donald Trump has issued yet another executive order, this one imposing travel sanctions against officials of the International Criminal Court involved in cases being brought against American or Israeli personnel. So far the sanctions don't seem to be as harsh as some had feared, though.

- The new US Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, has issued a memo mandating the department to give preference to communities with high marriage and birth rates when allocating funding. It's not The Handmaid's Tale yet, but it seems to be getting closer to that by the day.

- The US Center for Disease Control has ordered the retraction of all papers submitted by their researchers for publication in outside journals so that they can be scrutinized for reference to things that the Trump administration thinks don't or shouldn't exist (like, say, LGBT* people).

- The CIA has reportedly offered buyouts to its entire workforce. If you thought the CIA was bad before, just wait until it's completely staffed by Trump's sycophants.

- Elon Musk's Departement of Government Efficiency has gained access to highly sensitive financial data with the Treasury Department, ostensibly to make sure that proper precautions are being taken when sending out money. Musk claims, without providing evidence, that payment approval officers were instructed to never deny payment no matter who the recipient. I have to assume that this is a lie, and that Musk's real reason for gaining access was to find potential dirt on his or the president's enemies, or to otherwise cause them grief.

- A recent poll found that 82% of Canadians would favour placing export taxes on oil shipments to the US if Trump's threatened tariffs materialize. This includes 72% of respondents in the Prairies, but Danielle Smith is most definitely not among that 72%.

- The National Football League has banned teams from posting on Bluesky, evidently to avoid the wrath of the Trump administration (or rather the administration's puppeteer Elon Musk).

- Two Russian colonels fell out of windows in two days, one of them fatally. Evidently Russian bigwigs are terribly careless around windows, failing to take basic precautions like making sure an FSB officer isn't in the room before going near the window.

- Manitoba Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Wally Daudrich has proposed a novel solution to the homelessness problem - feeding the homeless to polar bears. While the conservationist in me is all in favour of making sure polar bears have enough to eat, I'm not sure this is the best solution to the problem.

One of the more interesting things to come out of the latest batch from Wikileaks

It seems the US did some serious arm-twisting to avoid the prosecution of some of their agents in Germany:

The messages also reveal some of the diplomatic pitfalls of America's so-called "war on terror". In 2007, the US fell out with Germany over arrest warrants that were issued for CIA agents accused of being involved in rendition. A senior US diplomat told a German official "our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the US".

From the Independent. I wonder what those "implications" would have been? Perhaps new regulations such that BMW, Mercedes, and VW don't meet new safety and emission standards?

US conducted research on torture -- report

Physicians for Human Rights reports that the Bush administration conducted research on "enhanced interrogation techniques" with human subjects:

In the most comprehensive investigation to date of health professionals’ involvement in the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program (EIP), Physicians For Human Rights has uncovered evidence that indicates the Bush administration apparently conducted illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on detainees in CIA custody. The apparent experimentation and research appear to have been performed to provide legal cover for torture, as well as to help justify and shape future procedures and policies governing the use of the “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The PHR report, Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Program, is the first to provide evidence that CIA medical personnel engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture.

This evidence indicating apparent research and experimentation on detainees opens the door to potential additional legal liability for the CIA and Bush-era officials. There is no publicly available evidence that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that the alleged experimentation and research performed on detainees was lawful, as it did with the “enhanced” techniques themselves.

Source (h/t escherichiacola at ontd_political). If this is true, it marks, not so much a new level of barbarism for the US, as a return to an old one...

Peak oil... when again?

One thing pretty well everyone can agree on is the fact that the amount of oil in the ground is finite. The big unknown, of course, is how much there actually is, and thus when demand will outstrip supply. Well, America's finest military minds fear that it may happen soon:

The US military has warned that surplus oil production capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.

The energy crisis outlined in a Joint Operating Environment report from the US Joint Forces Command, comes as the price of petrol in Britain reaches record levels and the cost of crude is predicted to soon top $100 a barrel.

"By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear, and as early as 2015, the shortfall in output could reach nearly 10 million barrels per day," says the report, which has a foreword by a senior commander, General James N Mattis.

It adds: "While it is difficult to predict precisely what economic, political, and strategic effects such a shortfall might produce, it surely would reduce the prospects for growth in both the developing and developed worlds. Such an economic slowdown would exacerbate other unresolved tensions, push fragile and failing states further down the path toward collapse, and perhaps have serious economic impact on both China and India."

From the Guardian (h/t Mega in this iTulip thread). Of course, they're particularly concerned with the national security implications, just like the CIA's Center on Climate Change and National Security.

US believed to have dosed French village with LSD

Seems they distributed spiked food as an experiment in possible military uses of the drug:

In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted.

For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.

From the Telegraph. If this is true, I wonder how many of the people responsible for this crime are still alive and fit to stand trial?