Brothers Judd Blog

If two New Hampshire men aren't a match for the Devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians. -Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943)

2026

Dragon Has No Teeth

SMAUG DIES IN THE END:

The rising risk of China turning Japanese: Beijing’s stimulus push may delay crisis, but without deeper reform, China risks a slower version of Japan’s long stagnation (Ronny P Sasmita, February 18, 2026, Asia Times)

Whether acknowledged or not, what is unfolding in China today bears a striking resemblance to Japan in 1989.

China’s property sector, which served as the primary engine of growth for two decades, has become a heavy drag on the economy. Developer giants such as Evergrande are not merely failed corporations; they symbolize the bursting of an asset bubble far larger than anything Japan experienced.

China is also beginning to show symptoms of Richard Koo’s balance sheet recession, this time at the household level. Middle-class families, with roughly 70% of their wealth tied to property, feel poorer as housing prices fall. Consumption slows accordingly.

At the same time, deflationary pressures are intensifying across the economy. Should China slide into a deflationary spiral of the kind Krugman describes, massive private and local government debts will become even more burdensome as the real value of debt rises while prices fall.

Robotics/AI

THE FUTURE ALREADY HAPPENED…AGAIN:

AI is the future of warfare and US is in the lead (Stephen Bryen, February 17, 2026, Asia Times)


Recently AI has played an important role in several conflicts: the Gaza war (Operation Gideon’s Chariots); US-Israel operations against Iran (Operation Rising Lion); the capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife in Venezuela (Operation Absolute Resolve); operations to locate and stop “rogue” oil tankers; and the Ukraine war, where AI is playing a major role.

If the US and Israel take action against Iran in the coming days, planning and operations would likely be supported by AI.

Energy

AS EVERYONE KNEW BUT HIM AND THE LEFT:

Why Big Oil wants no part of Trump-seized Venezuela (Damian Tobin, February 19, 2026, Asia Times)


After the US captured Venezuela’s president at the start of 2026, Donald Trump promised to “unleash” the country’s oil supply. He wanted companies to invest US$100 billion to get hold of it.

Big Oil though, seems less than keen on that idea, appearing to consider Venezuela too expensive or risky.

Identitarianism

NO ONE HATES JUST MUSLIMS:

NatCon Chief’s Muddled Brief: Yoram Hazony’s confused attempt to sort out the problem of right-wing antisemitism. (Gabriel Schoenfeld, Feb 18, 2026, The Bulwark)

As Hazony acknowledges, the Republican party is itself at risk for becoming infected by “relentless anti-Jewish messaging.” What he has in mind is not merely arguments about Israeli policy toward Gaza, but “the explicit and savage targeting” by rightwing podcasters “of Jews, Judaism, and Zionism.” Is this the future, he asks, of the Republican party?

The party, in Hazony’s description, is today divided into three distinct factions. A “liberal wing” led by figures such as Lindsey Graham, Mike Pompeo, and Ted Cruz was once dominant, but in the Trump era, it has been in decline and probably represents no more than “25 percent of the party’s primary voters today.”

Then there is a nationalist wing, represented by Trump himself, as well as JD Vance, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth. Hazony estimates that it makes up about 65 percent of the party and is distinguished “by its support for an industrial policy to restore America’s manufacturing capabilities, its outspoken rejection of compromise on immigration issues, and its skepticism of long foreign wars.”

Finally, there’s the alt-right, “which was mostly a fringe phenomenon until 2023, when big-name media figures Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens moved into this space.” Today, Hazony says, its voters comprise perhaps 10 percent of the Republican party.

But of course, the distinction Hazony is drawing between liberal and nationalist Republicans is completely contrived and even nonsensical. In what ways, fundamental or otherwise, do such “liberal” Republicans as Graham, Pompeo, and Cruz—all of them Trump sycophants—differ from Vance, Rubio, and Hegseth—all of them also Trump sycophants?

Once you unleash the Identitarian monster, you can’t get it to hate just one “Identity”

Environment

FEEDING THE FERAL GODS:

When Grief Came for the Gravedigger: In pursuit of an interesting life, he came face to face with death. (Will Bahr, d Feb. 11, 2026, NY Times Magazine)

Under Alison, it became commonplace at the sanctuary to invite the bereaved to dig graves and bury their dead themselves. We would still assist, of course, and ensure that no one showed up to dig wearing Crocs. But oftentimes the sanctuary staff was very much in the background. People leaped at the opportunity to take agency in this, their last act of service. Anyone who has borne grief’s leaden weight knows how physical a process it is — that phantom anvil perched on the shoulders, the chest; that lump unswallowable in the throat. Digging a grave yourself is an exceedingly rare opportunity for catharsis. Filling one in is closure, literalized. And so I found myself digging and filling graves beside mothers, sons, dear bereft friends. I came to know the dead through their people, who thanked us for the opportunity nearly to a name.

I wondered sometimes what kind of toll the work was taking on me. Physically, it was clear enough. My shoulders ached, my hands grew calloused and dirt-caked and torn by blackberry thorns (though I mostly loved this part). Mentally, the ledger was more vague. I was well acquainted with personal grief coming into the job, but here I felt like a tourist. I watched as a widow howled in animal anguish, kneeling in black by her lover’s graveside. I watched as a whole dynasty stiffly buried its matriarch, hands jammed in pockets, words unsaid hanging humidity-thick overhead. Most days, it felt like any other job — rote, obligatory. Others, I wept for total strangers.

One evening in late September 2024, it started raining. Then it started raining hard. News of a coming storm crept into our news feeds. We had a burial scheduled for the midst of the squall; Alison and I texted “As I Lay Dying” references back and forth.

“I’ll bring the covered wagon,” I said, “you bring Anse’s teeth.”

“I haven’t read it since high school,” she admitted, “but I’ll take your word for it.”

This sense of ha-ha doomsdayism permeated Asheville. How bad, in western North Carolina, could a hurricane possibly get?

Brothers Judd

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF JOY:

A Cloudspotters’ Guide to Climate Change: On a lost-in-time island off the coast of England, a group called the Cloud Appreciation Society gathers to look skyward and bask in the delights of nature. But halfway around the world, scientists have modeled a scenario in which Stratocumulus actually disappear under extreme climate conditions. What’s a cloud lover to do in the Age of the Anthropocene? (MARI SAITO on LUNDY ISLAND, ENGLAND, Photographs by PHIL NOBLE, July 25, 2019, Reuters)

Apath of trampled grass leads up the hill to St. Helen’s, the only church on Lundy Island. Near its doors, a stray lamb nibbles on tufts of tall weeds. From a Gothic tower topped with the English flag, the coastline of Devon is faintly visible to the east, while the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean stretches west, the seas uninterrupted all the way to North America.

Inside, a handful of visitors in windproof jackets lean forward on wooden benches to catch the Rev. Jane Skinner’s words.

“Majestic or wispy, solid yet ephemeral. Who could conceive of clouds?” Skinner asks, sturdy Teva sandals peeking out from underneath her white robes. “God has the whole spectrum in view, from the heavenly sphere to the atom, the clouds delivering dramatic forces of nature, shielding and obscuring light.”

As she speaks, workmen bustle about the nave setting up equipment for the days to come. It’s no easy task, hosting a group on an off-grid island powered by a generator that switches off at midnight, and where the internet signal goes down in overloaded circuits whenever someone uses electricity to make tea.

Cirrus and contrails compete in the sky above Lundy Island, with a lighthouse in view in the distance on this spit of land off England’s southwest coast.


“Clouds remind us to be joyful,” Skinner starts again. “To pause and glory in nature, which is beautiful and good.”

Health

TEST LESS:

99% of adults over 40 have shoulder “abnormalities” on an MRI, study finds (Beth Mole, Feb 17, 2026, Ars Technica)

In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week, 99 percent of adults over 40 were found to have at least one abnormality in a rotator cuff on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The rotator cuff is the group of muscles and tendons in a shoulder joint that keeps the upper arm bone securely in the shoulder socket—and is often blamed for pain and other symptoms. The trouble is, the vast majority of people in the study had no shoulder problems.

In other words, it’s normal.

Anglospherics

GEORGE SHOULD HAVE GIVEN US OUR OWN PARLIAMENT:

The Shots Heard Round the World (.John Ferling, , Spring 2025, American Heritage)


The stirrings that led to the conflagration were set in motion in the 1760s, when Great Britain embarked on a striking departure in its colonial policies. It was a multifaceted divergence that stepped on many toes, including those of the most powerful residents in the 13 North American colonies. Britain tightened its regulation of imperial trade, hoping to eliminate smuggling by urban merchants who trafficked in outlawed foreign commodities and sought to avoid paying duties on legitimate commerce. Imperial authorities also mandated a temporary halt to western migration beyond the Appalachian Mountains, antagonizing land speculators — mostly wealthy and influential colonists — and land-hungry farmers.

With the Stamp Act, in 1765, Parliament for the first time sought to levy taxes on its American subjects. It subsequently turned to other forms of taxation. To many colonists it seemed, as it did in 1774 to the Virginia planter and businessman George Washington, that Great Britain was pursuing “a Systematic ascertion of an arbitrary power” in violation of “the Laws & Constitution of their Country, & to violate the most essential & valuable rights of mankind.”

The Colonists had grievances beyond taxes and regulations, including their status as second-rate citizens unable to rise in British ranks.


Many colonists harbored grievances other than those concerning regulations and taxes. Some people in some provinces were unhappy with having to pay tithes to the established Church of England. Ambitious colonists resented the fact-of-life limitations that faced them. Confronted with an unspoken but all-too-real second-class rank within the British Empire, aspiring colonists recognized that the door was closed to their sitting in Parliament, gaining ministerial and diplomatic posts, or rising to the loftiest ranks in the British army or the Royal Navy.

Anglospherics

THE FALKLANDS IS A NATION:

Change is afoot in the Falkland Islands: Falkland Islanders are showing that their future is theirs alone to decide (Daniel Toft, 2/16/26, The Critic)

Elections are free and fair, candidates stand as individuals rather than party labels, the media scrutinises those in office, and the result is accepted without question. Independent observers are unnecessary, although utilised for the first time, because confidence in the system is so high.

That matters, as for decades, Falkland Islanders have made clear that the future is theirs alone to decide. From the 2013 referendum to successive general elections, the Islands have consistently demonstrated that self-determination is a lived, practical reality and not some abstract principle.

Religion

CHILDREN OF FAITH:

My Conversion to Skeptical Belief (Christopher Beha, 2/10/26, NY Times)

To many, this will sound like a bit of a paradox, since skepticism and belief are understood to be in serious tension, if not outright opposition. We are all skeptical at certain times about certain things, but when we refer to someone more generally as a “skeptic,” we tend to mean that this person bases beliefs about the world entirely on the rational examination of objective evidence. More pointedly, we almost always mean that this person does not believe in God. But this is not at all the term’s historical meaning.

The Greek philosopher Pyrrho of Elis is often counted as the first philosophical skeptic. His complete doubt about the possibility of any human knowledge extended so far that, according to an ancient, possibly apocryphal account, he refused even to accept the evidence of his senses while walking down the street, “taking no precaution, but facing all risks as they came, whether carts, precipices, dogs or what not.” (His less skeptical friends followed behind to keep him out of trouble.)

Pyrrho’s first great modern disciple, the French essayist Michel de Montaigne, would not even say that he knew nothing, which seemed to express too much certainty. He preferred to put the matter as a question: “What do I know?” Yet Montaigne’s essays contain countless expressions of Christian piety. Precisely because we can’t have knowledge about even the most basic points, he argued, we must inevitably take certain things on faith — at least, if we don’t have friends kind enough to spend their lives guiding us around dogs and carts.


It’s possible to understand the entire modern philosophical tradition as an effort to grapple with the extreme skepticism that Montaigne reintroduced to Western culture without falling, as Montaigne did, back on faith. Four hundred and fifty years later, that project has brought us to a strange point.

The strangeness resides in the fact that reason disproves the foundations of Reason and demonstrates that all is faith.

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