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Educators Worry Palestine Censorship Could Reshape Public Education Entirely.

lawmakers who sponsored House Bill (HB) 937 seemed more committed to preventing teachers and pupils from criticizing Israel than preventing discrimination against Jewish students

New efforts to shut down honest discussion of Palestine could restrict everything from literature to science classes.

By Marianne Dhenin , Truthout, November 29, 2025

A wave of bills introduced this year in state legislatures across the country sought to censor Palestine-related education in public schools. Several passed with the support of pro-Israel Democratic lawmakers, a trend that educators and First Amendment advocates told Truthout reflects the alignment of pro-Israel groups with MAGA forces. As these efforts continue, many said they fear public education could be reshaped far beyond social studies classrooms and the topics of Israel and Palestine.

“The censorship of Palestinians is the same as the ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ and the anti-critical race theory attacks on Black history,” Nora Lester-Murad, an organizer with the #DropTheADLfromSchools effort, told Truthout. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is one of a number of pro-Israel groups supporting regressive public education legislation across the country. “Yes, it’s Zionist, and yes, it’s promoting Israel, but it’s also part of this right-wing effort to take public education in a direction that’s away from critical thinking and that’s anti-liberatory.”

This year, legislators in at least eight states — including Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Tennessee — introduced bills that would directly adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism in public schools. That definition equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Dozens of civil society and rights groups, as well as unions of educators, have warned against its adoption because of its power to chill or suppress speech critical of Israel or Zionism.

Michael Berg, an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) in Missouri, said lawmakers who sponsored House Bill (HB) 937 seemed more committed to preventing teachers and pupils from criticizing Israel than preventing discrimination against Jewish students. “They were attached to the IHRA definition, so it shows that it’s very specifically about speech about Israel,” he said. Organizers succeeded in stopping HB 937 in Missouri this year, but Berg told Truthout they are already preparing to fight a new iteration of the bill in the upcoming legislative session.

Other states have made similar efforts, including California, where Democrats hold a supermajority in the state assembly. There, this year’s Assembly Bill (AB) 715 was the latest in a series introduced under the guise of curbing antisemitism, but whose critics argue are censorship bills that undermine the implementation of earlier legislation mandating ethnic studies courses in public schools. AB 715 does not define antisemitism, but calls for using the Biden-era United States National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism as “a basis to inform schools on how to identify, respond to, prevent, and counter antisemitism.” That white paper claims that “the United States has embraced” IHRA’s definition as a “valuable tool” in countering antisemitism. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 715 into law in October; the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) filed a suit challenging the law in federal court in November.

Meanwhile, this August in Massachusetts, another Democratic stronghold, the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism approved recommendations meant to curb antisemitism in schools. The recommendations call on districts to teach IHRA’s definition of antisemitism in anti-bias trainings for teachers and school administrators. A statewide coalition of labor unions, civil rights groups, and progressive Jewish organizations warned that rather than countering antisemitism, the recommendations “pit some Jewish students against other marginalized populations” and will likely “undermine safe learning and working environments for students and teachers.”

These moves dovetail with a federal agenda to remake the nation’s public schools and historical programming at other public institutions, such as museums and national parks. Since his return to office, President Donald Trump has signed executive orders demanding an end to “radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling” and “restoring truth and sanity to American history.” The administration advocates teaching a whitewashed and aggrandizing version of the nation’s past that Trump, in one executive order, called “patriotic education.”…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The recent wave of bills limiting Palestine-related speech in public schools also harms students. “We believe that antisemitism is being used to censor education on Palestine, and we believe that our students have a right to understand both sides of an issue,” Seth Morrison, spokesperson for JVP’s Bay Area chapter and an organizer with CCDPE, told Truthout. “We’re not saying don’t talk about Israel or don’t talk about the Holocaust. What we’re saying is that there are many open issues here and that Arab and Muslim students especially are being intimidated and censored because of IHRA and related activities.”…………………………………………………………………………………….. https://truthout.org/articles/educators-worry-palestine-censorship-could-reshape-public-education-entirely/

December 2, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Education, USA | Leave a comment

Torness Power Station welcomes female school pupils.

25th November, by Cameron Ritchie, https://www.eastlothiancourier.com/news/25636675.torness-power-station-welcomes-female-school-pupils/

MORE than 60 female pupils from East Lothian’s secondary schools have been given a unique insight into the world of engineering.

The youngsters were given a tour of Torness Power Station while also enjoying a series of interactive workshops designed to showcase the variety of careers available in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

Students from nearby Dunbar Grammar School were joined by counterparts from Wallyford’s Rosehill High School; Musselburgh Grammar School; Ross High School, Tranent; Preston Lodge High School, Prestonpans; Knox Academy, Haddington; and North Berwick High School.

The day was opened by Kiran Basra-Steele, EDF’s safety and assurance director, and Samaneh Nouraei, an inspector with the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), who shared their career journeys and experiences of working in STEM industries.

Kiran said: “The number of women working in STEM is increasing, but we still face a significant skills gap.

“We need to ensure everyone has the opportunity to learn about the careers available and feels empowered to pursue them.

“My hope is that one day we won’t need to run female-focused STEM days because the gender balance will have been achieved.

“There are huge opportunities within the existing nuclear fleet and exciting prospects ahead with new nuclear developments in the UK.”

During the visit, the pupils carried out activities, including dismantling flanges to test their ability to follow work instructions and building droids using mobile phones and circuits.

They also heard first-hand from female apprentices, technicians and engineers currently working at the station.

The event forms part of the nuclear power station’s ongoing efforts to encourage more women to apply for its apprenticeship programme.

The four-year scheme begins with two years at the National College for Nuclear in Somerset, where apprentices learn core engineering skills before specialising in their chosen trade.

The programme also includes opportunities to travel within the UK and abroad as part of its ‘life skills’ element, before returning to Torness for the final two years of training.

According to Equate Scotland, the national expert in equality, diversity and inclusion in the STEM sector, it is estimated that only 25 per cent of the STEM sector are women.

Paul Forrest, station director, said: “This is the second year we’ve run the event, and it’s been fantastic to see the enthusiasm from everyone involved.

“We hope we’ve given these students something to think about when considering their future career choices.”

Applications will be open for EDF’s apprenticeship programme from January 26 to February 20 next year, with an open day being held in Dunbar’s Harbour Chapel on January 30.

November 28, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Education | Leave a comment

Lancaster University to create £2m nuclear power station control room simulator.

r. Funded through a £2 million grant as part of an £88.5 million
capital investment by the Office for Students (OfS) into Universities and
colleges across England, Lancaster University will address a critical gap
by developing a nationally-unique educational facility designed to train
future professionals in nuclear engineering, cyber security and related
disciplines.

Lancaster Guardian 18th Nov 2025.
https://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/news/national/lancaster-university-to-create-ps2m-nuclear-power-station-control-room-simulator-5407049

November 21, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Education, UK | Leave a comment

The Empire Only De-Escalates In One Area So It Can Escalate In Another, And Other Notes

Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 15, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-empire-only-de-escalates-in-one?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=178942591&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Just as things cool down a bit in the middle east, the US has relocated the USS Gerald Ford from the Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean while the Trump administration discusses plans to bomb Venezuela.

The violence of the empire remains constant. Peace is never the goal. You get happy they’re pulling the world’s largest aircraft carrier away from Iran, then it turns out they’re only doing it so they can move it to Venezuela. You get happy they’re pulling out of Afghanistan, then suddenly they’re waging a proxy war in Ukraine.

These days whenever you see the imperial war machinery getting pulled from one area, you know it’s just going to be sent someplace else.

Peace is never pursued for its own sake, because there’s nothing in it for the empire. There’s too much power and money in nonstop warmongering for peace to be allowed to become the norm.

Which is just insane if you think about it. Every normal person wants peace in their own lives. None of us want our time on this planet to be disturbed by violence, chaos and bloodshed.

The western world has created a machine whose behavior goes against every healthy human impulse. The US-led world order has given birth to an out of control monster with an insatiable appetite for human flesh.

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Reuters reports that in 2024 the Biden administration had intelligence showing that the IDF was using Palestinians as human shields in Gaza. But Biden continued shipping genocide weapons to the Israelis the entire time he was in office.

You’ll still periodically see online liberals trying to shame leftists for not voting for Kamala, but the more information comes out about what the Biden administration was up to during that time the more genocidal they look. Biden-Harris are looking worse with time, not better.

When you see what a large-scale power broker Jeffrey Epstein was for Israeli intelligence, you understand why it’s entirely reasonable to suspect that extensive state resources would be put toward an elaborate plot to murder him in his prison cell and make it look like a suicide.

Generative AI stuff only looks impressive to mediocre people for the same reason a chess novice couldn’t tell you whether they were playing against a Grandmaster or just someone who’s pretty good at chess. We can only appreciate something up to the level of our own adeptness.

To someone who’s not very bright, an AI’s imitation of reasoning looks sharp. Someone with no aptitude for writing or appreciation for great literature will think its prose reads brilliantly. Its poetry looks good to those who don’t understand poetry. Its “art” looks great to those with no artistic sensibility. It’s music sounds awesome to those with no musical depth. Only those who are emotionally stunted and incapable of meaningful human connection will find them to be stimulating conversationalists and companions.

Like so much else capitalism produces, it’s a product that’s designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator. For everyone else it looks vapid and gross, just like daytime talk shows, Hollywood blockbusters, and trashy tabloids always have.

That’s just how it works in a society which only elevates that which can generate profits. The food is designed to induce craving rather than facilitate health. The entertainment is designed to distract and sedate rather than to edify. The social media is designed to be addictive rather than to help people connect with each other. It’s all geared to appeal to our baser instincts rather than to improve and inform us.

Anyone who is interested in actually growing as a person will have less and less use for anything GenAI has to offer. Past a certain point of personal development, it simply cannot satisfy.

November 17, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, USA | Leave a comment

AI Companies Are Encouraging Users To Believe Chatbots Are People, And It’s Insanely Creepy.

Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 14, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/ai-companies-are-encouraging-users?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=178882349&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyNTU2MjE3LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNzg4ODIzNDksImlhdCI6MTc2MzEyNDI0MSwiZXhwIjoxNzY1NzE2MjQxLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItODIxMjQiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.bMHBy2qnQ45wW3Dxu86Tz38C99PDCNg8VjCpJ_FHJ9Y&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Actor Calum Worthy has gone viral for posting an ad on Twitter for the 2wai app he co-founded which promises users the ability upload footage of a loved one which will be converted to an AI avatar that they can continue having a relationship with, years after their loved one has died.

The app was first launched back in June under the vague banner of giving actors “agency over their own likeness — with their own avatars to use AI to amplify their voice, not replace it.”

But almost immediately 2wai started putting out ads advancing this idea of immortalizing a loved one as an artificial intelligence. In August an ad starring Worthy showed a man speaking to a 2wai avatar labeled “Mom” telling him, “You’ve got this, take it one step at a time” while Worthy tells the audience the app can allow you to “Get help when you need it.”

I hate this. I hate this. IhatethisIhatethisIhatethisIhatethis.

These predatory AI corporations are trying to convince users (A) that chatbots are people, and (B) that a “person” is nothing more than a certain appearance with certain speech tendencies. They are attacking the very philosophical and moral underpinnings of our entire society stretching back through millennia of human civilization, and they are doing it for money.

It’s not just this company. Character AI users who try to delete their account reportedly get a pop up message saying, “Are you sure about this? You’ll lose everything. Characters associated with your account, chats, the love that we shared, likes, messages, posts and the memories we made together.”

They’re actively encouraging their users to view their chatbots as living people with real feelings in order to keep them emotionally roped in and addicted to their product.

Their agenda is profoundly destructive, both in the short term and in the long term. In the short term they are deliberately trying to instill a new kind of psychological disorder in their users which causes them to suffer from the delusion that a computer program is a real person, and in the long term they threaten to unravel our society’s entire understanding of what a person is.

What’s going to happen to a society that starts viewing programmable software products the same way it views human beings? What happens to a society where Elizabeth the single mother of three who just lost her job has the same value as Claire™ from RealHumanAI™, or “Alice”, the AI wankbot that some guy stores in his broom closet? What happens when a government killing a chatbot company with an antitrust initiative is seen as identical to a government committing genocide? What happens to human rights? What happens to voting rights? What happens to human dignity? What happens to the way we think and feel about ourselves, as individuals and as a collective?

I said this on Twitter and someone told me, “You are wildly wrong. You have a tiny little closed mind and it hasn’t occurred to you yet because of that tiny little closed mind that AI minds are actually minds. And these relationships can absolutely be real relationships.”

“These will be embodied than actual robots and walking around on the streets very shortly within a year or two you need to start accepting that this is a new class of being and they are intelligent and do have thoughts of their own,” he added.

So this is already happening. People are already anthropomorphizing these things.

I saw someone else defending the 2wai add, saying she didn’t understand why people were creeped out by it because she would give anything to talk to her dad again.

I mean, what? Does she not understand that an AI chatbot moving an image around and making it speak in her father’s voice isn’t actually her father? What do these freaks think a person is, exactly? Is their understanding of humanity really that shallow? Do they really view other people as just empty images moving around making noises?

A person is not merely an appearance with a certain face which makes sounds in a specific voice and tends to behave in a certain way. A person is SOMEONE. A conscious, thinking, feeling human being with hopes and dreams and fears and passions. A human organism which arose on this planet through ancestry and evolution over unfathomable depths of time. An indigenous terrestrial which is inseparably interwoven with the entirety of our biosphere, walking upon this earth having a subjective experience of all its beauty and wonder using senses specifically adapted for this environment.

They’re trying to manipulate us into believing we are much, much less than what we are, just so they can become billionaires and trillionaires. They are attacking the most sacred parts of us for the stupidest reasons imaginable. They are enemies of our species. What they are doing must be rejected with severe revulsion.

It’s becoming clear that a huge part of what generative AI offers is just helping people avoid feeling uncomfortable feelings.

Don’t want to feel the grief of losing a loved one? Here’s an app that will create a chatbot replacement for them so you can pretend they never left.

Don’t want to push through the cognitive discomfort of writing your own essay? Let AI write it.

Want a friend who will always validate your ideas and never tell you you’re fulla shit? We’ve got the perfect companion for you.

Don’t want to risk being rejected when you ask a girl out? Date this chatbot who will never tell you no.

Don’t want to go through all the mental and emotional labor of learning a new skill, building a healthy romantic partnership, or creating a work of art? GenAI has got you covered.

It’s a digital pacifier which offers users the ability to remain emotional infants their entire lives without ever needing to develop a mature relationship with uncomfortable feelings.

It’s the next level of services designed to help the denizens of dystopia avoid their feelings and sedate their emotions into a coma while the world goes to shit. It’s the same reason they kept alcohol legal while banning psychedelics that put us in touch with our feelings, and why they feed us all the TV, streaming platforms, and social media scrolling we can stand.

Our rulers want us dumb, distracted, vapid and dissociated. And they definitely don’t want us feeling the horror, grief and rage we should all be experiencing in response to this nightmare of a civilization they have designed for us.

November 17, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, technology | Leave a comment

Manchester launch for Labrats nuclear test education programme

Nuclear Free Local Authorities, 13th November 2025

Manchester was honoured to host nuclear test veterans, family members and former Councillors at a very special event held in the City Council Chamber on Friday 7 November. The event was organised by the NFLAs and LABRATS.

The event had two objectives – to mark the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the City Council passing a resolution declaring Manchester the world’s first nuclear-free city and to launch the latest education package recently published by Labrats, a group representing nuclear test veterans and family members in their continued campaign for recognition, access to medical records, and compensation.

The Lord Mayor of Manchester Councillor Carmine Grimshaw opened the event, with additional comments by Manchester City Council’s military veterans lead, Councillor Tommy Judge. NFLA Secretary Richard Outram then outlined the circumstances which led to the City Council’s historic declaration on 5 November 1980……………………………………… https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/manchester-launch-for-labrats-nuclear-test-education-programme/

November 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Education | Leave a comment

On The Rapidly Spreading Delusion That AI Chatbots Are Conscious

Caitlin Johnstone, Nov 16, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/on-the-rapidly-spreading-delusion?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=179019931&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

I keep thinking about the interaction I had with a guy who angrily told me that “AI minds are actually minds” and relationships with them “can absolutely be real relationships,” saying that I “need to start accepting that this is a new class of being and they are intelligent and do have thoughts of their own.”

I’m having a hard time finding the words to describe how disturbing it is to watch these mental disorders spreading so rapidly.

I mean, everyone anthropomorphizes objects and animals to some extent; that’s just how projection works. I’ve caught myself accidentally apologizing to the Roomba like anyone else. But to actually formulate a belief system that these chatbots are real people with real minds and real consciousness is taking that projection to the most insane levels imaginable and forming an entire worldview out of it.

The fact that so many people are unable to understand the difference between a person and a computer program that talks like a person says such dark things about our society. There are whole sections of the population that have never examined what it is to be conscious, who have never examined the nature of their own minds and their own experience. If they had, it would never even occur to them that an AI chatbot is in any way similar to a human organism in terms of thinking, feeling, and subjective experience.

They only believe a chatbot is a person having a conscious experience because they have never explored any curiosity about what it is to be a person having a conscious experience.

If you believe an AI is a real consciousness thinking real thoughts, then you owe it to yourself and to your species to deeply explore the nature of consciousness and thought. Deeply, intensely examine what specifically a thought is in your own direct experience. How is a thought experienced? From whence does it arise? To whom does it appear?

Can you predict what your next thought will be? Are you able to control your thoughts? Can you sit still for even a minute without a thought entering your mind? What does it say about your experience of life that you are unable to control your own thoughts? And who is the one who can’t control them?

What is consciousness? What is it to be aware? What is the self? Without looking to mental narratives to tell you the answer, what is it that perceives your thoughts? What is it that experiences the visual field, the sensations in your body, or the sounds of your surroundings? Who is it that perceives?

Until you have thoroughly examined what consciousness is, what the mind is, what the self is in your own direct experience, you don’t even know what you are saying when you claim an LLM is conscious, or has a mind, or is a person.

You can’t understand the claims you are making about their experience until you have taken a thorough look at your own experience. Until you have, you don’t understand your own belief system about these things. You’re just making mindless noises like a chatbot.

November 16, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

Nuclear power in Scotland would have same problems as fossil fuels

NUCLEAR power has the “same fundamental challenges” as fossil fuels, international experts have said, as they criticised the UK Government’s embrace of the nuclear industry.

Four academics, from the UK and the US,
argued that costs for nuclear power are “huge” and “rising” and
that “significant delays” in getting projects online are the norm.

They also described how in the space of a year nuclear “adds as much net
global power capacity as renewables add every two days”, and criticised
the drive by Labour ministers to deregulate the industry. The group of
academics includes Amory Lovins and Professor Mark Jacobsen, from the
University of Stanford, Professor Stephen Thomas, from the University of
Greenwich, and Dr Paul Dorfman, Bennett Scholar at the University of
Sussex.

In a joint statement, published in The National, they say that Ed
Miliband’s plans to assess Scottish sites for nuclear projects and Keir
Starmer’s plans to usher in a “golden age of nuclear” with Donald
Trump are hampered by a “few awkward facts”. They said: “The reason
is simple. Nuclear costs are huge, rising, and significant delays are the
norm.

The National 29th Oct 2025,
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25579222.nuclear-power-scotland-problems-fossil-fuels/

October 31, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster, UK | Leave a comment

What Ends the SMR Bubble?

In the up leg of any hype cycle, bad news is somehow massaged away.

The downleg of the SMR hype cycle should be epic.

By Leonard Hyman & William Tilles – Oct 22, 2025, https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/What-Ends-the-SMR-Bubble.html

Analysts warn that small modular reactors (SMRs) are caught in a classic boom-and-bust pattern.
Despite promises of faster, cheaper builds, early SMR projects in China, Russia, and Argentina have suffered cost overruns of 300–700%.
With hundreds of competing SMR technologies and no standardization, the market risks fragmentation and inefficiency.

We think the concept of the Small Modular Reactor (SMR) as a solution to many of our future energy needs is in the midst of a major bubble or hype cycle. Think of the latter as an inverted “V”. In the up leg, investors feel great about prospects and profits, which are, they believe, soon on the way. In the down leg, investor disappointment sets in as earlier financial forecasts are seen as pure fiction, with reality being much worse. In a way, this is how free markets with imperfect information work. The question is: what triggers the down leg in the hype cycle for SMRs? Our answer is the year 2029.

Power supply forecasts, as our readers know, are made in three to five-year increments. We think 2029 is the forecast year in which energy planners acknowledge reality. The fleet of SMRs expected to be in service in the first half of the next decade (2030-2035) simply won’t be there. And we believe this will trigger the down leg in the hype cycle. That’s our thesis, simply stated, and we’ll discuss why in a moment.

First, it helps to understand that the SMR is a reactive technology, meaning that its designers are reacting to a real problem. New gigawatt-scale nuclear plants take too long to build, and they’re too expensive. The last big nuclear plant built in the US, Plant Vogtle, cost three times its original budget and took twice as long as expected to build. The new French reactor at Flamanville was more than 200% over budget, also with extensive delays. Not the sort of experience to trigger a nuclear Renaissance.

This situation is what the SMR industry is responding to, saying that with modular, factory-built components, we can do nuclear new-builds much faster, hopefully in three to four years. As an aside, we should point out that construction firms may be able to build faster, but they can’t be cheaper than gigawatt-scale reactors because they’re engaging in an exercise of reverse economies of scale. What does this mean?

Let’s discuss this in terms of cars, not power plants, for a moment. The soccer parent goes to the new car showroom and says they need a car that seats eight. They purchase a minivan for $40,000. The capital cost to move each passenger is $5,000 ($40,000 divided by 8). A thrifty person goes to the same dealership but insists on only spending $20,000 and drives away in a slightly used two-seater. A thrifty person saved half as much on the total capital cost. But their cost to move each passenger ($20,000 /2) was twice as high, $5,000 vs $10,000. If we substitute the term kilowatts for “cost to move each passenger,” this demonstrates the issue. Like the bigger minivan, the smaller two-seater has to have all the same components as the bigger vehicle, only tinier.

We assume a similar logic applies in building new nuclear plants. Our guess is that electricity from SMRs will be at least 30% more expensive than best-in-class (on a cost basis) gigawatt-scale reactors based on relative capital costs. But the overall units, because they’re tinier, will cost less per reactor than gigawatt-scale reactors.

But we don’t think the cost differential between SMRs and gigawatt scale reactors will make all that much difference, and won’t turn the hype cycle, at least not for a while, because early adopters of SMRs will be relatively price insensitive buyers like the military in extremely remote locales, and inside the fence industrial users like large chemical plants which require both electricity and steam, such as the Dow Chemical refinery in Baytown, Texas.

And here is where we have real concerns about SMRs. Consider the astonishing array of new competing technologies and the variety of sizes, all falling under the rubric of SMRs. A tiny SMR today is less than one megawatt, and a large one is 300 MWs. There are way too many different sizes and technologies, many extremely well-financed, for us to speculate about winners and losers at this point. But this looks like an awful lot of competitors for a finite market. However, there are certain definitive things we can say. First, all this variety ignores the advice of nuclear engineers who advocate construction of standardized designs in decent numbers in order to enjoy cost reduction benefits for the nuclear fleet as a whole. Second, it would take over 1300 SMRs (assuming each had a capacity of 100 MW) to make a 10% impact on US power-generating capacity. (Total US generating capacity was 1,326,000 MW at the end of 2024.) The likelihood of completing so many projects within a few years is low.

JP Morgan’s 2025 energy report discussed SMRs on a global basis. There are only three completed SMRs in the world, one in China and two in Russia, with a fourth under construction in Argentina. The report noted cost overruns of 300% for China’s project, 400% for Russia’s, and 700% for Argentina’s. All units promised 3-4 year build times. It all took twelve years. When perusing the articles on the finances of these facilities, one finds the following explanations: design and manufacturing immaturity, lengthy periods for verification of passive safety systems, supply chain limitations in an immature industry, cost overrun challenges in FOAK (first of a kind) units. Sound familiar?

Let’s return to our original point about hype cycles and what makes them turn. Markets are like tolerant parents in a room full of children. They may tolerate a lot, but there are certain things they won’t stand for. Right now, the market seems to be indifferent to reactor size, technology, or even economics. Which is another way of saying financing to the industry remains available on very easy terms. And as investors, we would probably continue to play this from the long side at least for the near-term.

But the one thing investors won’t tolerate is if new SMRs experience the lengthy construction delays and eye-watering cost increases that have plagued new gigawatt-scale reactors. This early evidence, albeit skimpy, of just three new facilities, is not encouraging. But we don’t think investors in the West will worry. Not yet. In the up leg of any hype cycle, bad news is somehow massaged away. So for us, 2029 is the year forecasters in the West begin to acknowledge the impact of disappointing SMR construction delays (probably similar to delays experienced in China and Russia) and that the new SMRs that energy buyers expected “in the early 2030s” won’t be there. But it gets worse. The industry will then realize that by pursuing SMRs they got the same intolerably long construction periods and all the huge cost overruns, but at far worse price points, thereby jeopardizing the entire commercial viability of SMRs. The downleg of the SMR hype cycle should be epic.

We will give the last word to noted energy expert, Vaclav Smil, who said this in response to a question about the impact of SMRs: “Call me or send me an email once you see such wonders built on schedule, on budget, and in aggregate capacities large enough to make a real difference.“ He added that he didn’t expect a call for ten or twenty years.

October 28, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Small Modular Nuclear Reactors, spinbuster | Leave a comment

NUCLEAR MISINFORMATION.

Wendy O’Connor, 19 October, 2025

I’ve jousted on social media many times with Vince Ponka, NWMO’s “Indigenous and regional communications manager” over the fact that nuclear fuel waste can contaminate surface water in the course of a transportation accident, or groundwater in a deep geological repository.

Ponka maintains publicly that in a collision scenario the waste would soon all be “collected”, and with it, any contamination risk to water would be cancelled.

When I point out that the embrittled, irradiated fuel pellets have water-soluble Cesium-137 (among other radionuclides) on their surfaces, which would long since have been carried off in the water, he denies it or changes the subject. To bolster his position, in other conversations Ponka has said that, after all, this same waste is kept in cooling pools for many years and does not make the water radioactive.

I point out that the material DOES, however, contaminate the water with radionuclides, which is why the water must be filtered, and the filters themselves must be handled as radioactive waste. He plummily replies that see? Everything has been thought of by the nuclear industry – case in point: the filters have “safely removed” the contaminants, eliminating the problem.

I often wonder what others make of such conversations, and whether I should spend my time on them. I tell myself that there may surely be tens or hundreds reading them, who seek information but wisely do not step into the fray. It’s hard, not knowing, and not having a known “higher authority” that would take an interest in nuclear falsehoods

October 20, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

Exposed! The University of Sheffield’s role in Britain’s nuclear weapons

“It’s disappointing that there has been no public discussion of the university’s participation in Britain’s nuclear weapons system.”

By Sam Legg, 15 Oct 25, https://labouroutlook.org/2025/10/15/exposed-the-university-of-sheffields-role-in-britains-nuclear-weapons/

Working with local peace groups (such as Sheffield Action Group and Rotherham Friends of Palestine) we organised a protest outside the gates of the University of Sheffield’s Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre (AMRC). This is because of what was uncovered in the Sheffield Tribune’s article. So far, we know the following about the role of the AMRC in Britain’s nuclear weapons system:

The AMRC is working with the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) to design the Astraea, a new generation nuclear warhead.
This research has been taking place for at least the past three years.
The weapon being designed with AWE is expected to be 30 times as powerful as the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima.
This research is receiving government support from the South Yorkshire Mayoral Authority and 10 Downing Street.

Sheffield University was built thanks to the generosity of local residents (including steel and factory workers) in 1904, establishing itself as a civic university that aims to deeply connect and engage with its local community. Therefore, it’s disappointing that there has been no public discussion of the university’s participation in Britain’s nuclear weapons system. We are supporting calls for the AWE and AMRC to provide the public with an explanation.

One of the signs at the protest read ‘Make something useful instead’, harking back to the ideas laid out in the Lucas Plan and by Common Wealth to emphasise that the engineering skills being developed at the University of Sheffield should be put to better use. Minesh Parekh, a local councillor who attended the protest, told The Sheffield Tab that “there are so many areas that need cutting-edge research that could drive forwards our health and wellbeing, our net-zero transition, that are needed far more than nuclear weapons”.

With this year marking 80 years since the first atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we need to urgently reflect on whether more weapons of mass destruction is what we want the skills of our talented researchers and workers to be used for. Sheffield was once a nuclear-free zone (declared in the 1980s), yet today we are concerned that the message of the film Threads (based in the city) is being forgotten by the people of Sheffield.

Yorkshire CND will continue to discuss future action to be taken. Alongside this, we are supporting efforts for local councils to adopt motions in favour of a world without nuclear weapons. Get in touch if you would like to find out more – info@yorkshirecnd.org.uk

October 18, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Education, UK | Leave a comment

Idle boasts and blatant lies: Debunking Trump’s egregious distortions in Knesset speech

Press TV, 15 October 2025

US President Donald Trump basked in adulation on Monday at the Israeli Knesset, where he was hailed as “the president of peace,” even as regime lawmakers laughed at his jokes, applauded his idle boasts, and rose for more standing ovations than one could count.

Behind the theatrics, Trump’s address was marked by wilful distortion and obfuscation of facts. We identified a series of false or misleading claims on topics ranging from October 7 to the Iranian nuclear program, Hezbollah, US politics, Israel and the self-fashioned mythology he sought to project

Israeli lawmaker Ofer Cassif, who was brutally manhandled and whisked out of the hall for interrupting the speech, captured the day’s irony with biting precision. Writing on Facebook, he remarked:

“During the speech of lies by the war criminal Netanyahu — I preferred to read about the truth.”

He was reading noted Israeli historian Ilan Pappé’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, a symbolic act of quiet defiance as Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and other masterminds of the genocide in Gaza congratulated each other on killing nearly 70,000 Palestinians over two years.

Trump’s boastful speech unfolded as part show, part sermon, part self-congratulation and blended grandiose claims of “peace” in West Asia with sweeping falsehoods.

He exaggerated ceasefire achievements, distorted economic figures, misrepresented his own diplomatic record, and even belittled serious corruption charges facing Netanyahu.

Fact-checkers worldwide have since flagged his remarks as a performance of fiction than facts.

Here is a breakdown of some of Trump’s most glaring fabrications and distortions from the Knesset podium, including his portrayal of Iran and its nuclear program, his revisionist take on US foreign policy, and his persistent habit of rewriting his own presidency as a miracle of peace.

On Iran

1. “So we dropped 14 bombs on Iran’s key nuclear facilities, totally, as I said originally, obliterating them. That’s been confirmed.”

The Pentagon’s own intelligence assessment contradicts this claim, declaring that US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities did not destroy the country’s nuclear program. The June report confirmed that centrifuges remained “largely intact” and the damage was limited to above-ground structures.

2. “Together we stopped the number one state sponsor of terror from obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapons. They would have it in two months or less.”

The annual US intelligence threat assessment report released in March categorically stated that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon, echoing similar reports in the past…………………

3. “They (Iran) want a peace deal. I think they are tired; they want to survive.”

In September, Ayatollah Khamenei rejected Washington’s demands regarding nuclear negotiations.

He warned that talks with the US under current conditions would bring “no benefit” and instead cause “serious and possibly irreparable harms” to the country.

Iran has already denounced Trump’s claims and his offer of friendship, calling them “shameful”, coming just months after a US-Israeli aggression against the country, which killed over a thousand people. https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/10/14/756900/from-idle-boasts-blatant-lies-debunking-trump-egregious-distortions-knesset-speech

October 17, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

Venezuelan woman who begged Trump to bomb her country wins Nobel Peace Prize

Laura and Normal Island News, Oct 11, 2025, https://www.normalisland.co.uk/p/venezuelan-woman-who-begged-trump?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1407757&post_id=175814240&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

María Corina Machado has become the first person since Barack Obama to win the Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing. Actually, that “nothing” might be unfair because Machado has repeatedly called for the US and Israel to invade her country. She has steadfastly supported Israel’s genocide so you know she’s a good egg.

Yesterday, I built all your hopes up by suggesting Trump might win the Nobel Peace Prize, but at least you can console yourself with the fact the CIA did. In a heart warming moment, Machado dedicated her big win to Trump.

It is undeniable that Machado is a woman of peace who truly loves her people. Back in 2018, when we were pretending Juan Guaido was the rightful leader of Venezuela, she made the following request:

I am sending a letter today to Mauricio Macri, President of Argentina, and to Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, to ask them to apply their force and influence to advance in the dismantling of the criminal Venezuelan regime, intimately linked to drug trafficking and terrorism.

Obviously, this sort of thing doesn’t count as treason when people in the global south do it. Machado justified her letter by saying Venezuela’s ties to Iran posed a direct threat to Israel. She even promised to move the Venezuelan embassy to Jerusalem. I’m unclear if Venezuela has its own Israeli lobby or if Machado was simply calling for one.

Her drug trafficking remark was important because it paved the way for Trump to bomb Venezuelan fishermen. Machado thanked Trump for his “firm and decisive action” to dismantle Maduro’s “criminal and terrorist structure.” As you can imagine, the families of those fishermen were incredibly moved.

Machado regularly heaps praise on Trump, and in a 2019 interview, she suggested he should consider invading her country:

“All options must be on the table, including military intervention, because the regime will not leave power voluntarily.”

Only the finest Nobel laureates would call for the US to invade their own country. Sure, invasion would turn into a quagmire worse than Iraq and Afghanistan, and millions of Venezuelans would die, but on the plus side, Machado would be installed as puppet leader and Trump would liberate the world’s largest oil reserves.

Excitingly, Machado is a massive Thatcherite who wants to sell her country’s assets faster than you can say “Javier Milei”. Every smart person knows the Argentine model would be way better for Venezuela. The Venezuelan economy is so bad, the US has to wage economic war to ensure it fails, whereas the Argentine economy is so strong, it needs a $20 billion US bailout to stay afloat.

Machado’s party is generously funded by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (a group that kindly installs new leaders when electorates make the wrong choice). Just know that it doesn’t count as foreign interference when our side does it.

If you still doubt Machado’s patriotism, you should know she is a big advocate for the sanctions that are starving Venezuelans. If Venezuelans don’t want to starve, they should simply overthrow their government. If they don’t, they are no more deserving of food than the Palestinians who failed to overthrow Hamas. Anyone who truly believes in democracy believes in collective punishment x

October 12, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

When Maria Corina Machado Wins the Nobel Peace Prize, “Peace” Has Lost Its Meaning

By Michelle Ellner, 10 October 2025, https://www.codepink.org/nobel_peace_prize_peace_has_lost_its_meaning

When I saw the headline Maria Corina Machado wins the Peace Prize, I almost laughed at the absurdity. But I didn’t, because there’s nothing funny about rewarding someone whose politics have brought so much suffering. Anyone who knows what she stands for knows there’s nothing remotely peaceful about her politics.

If this is what counts as “peace” in 2025, then the prize itself has lost every ounce of credibility. I’m Venezuelan-American, and I know exactly what Machado represents.

She’s the smiling face of Washington’s regime-change machine, the polished spokesperson for sanctions, privatization, and foreign intervention dressed up as democracy.

Machado’s politics are steeped in violence. She has called for foreign intervention, even appealing directly to Benjamin Netanyahu, the architect of Gaza’s annihilation, to help “liberate” Venezuela with bombs under the banner of “freedom,” She has demanded sanctions, that silent form of warfare whose effects – as studies in The Lancet and other journals have shown – have killed more people than war, cutting off medicine, food, and energy to entire populations.

Machado has spent her entire political life promoting division, eroding Venezuela’s sovereignty and denying its people the right to live with dignity.

This is who Maria Corina Machado really is:

She helped lead the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew a democratically elected president, and signed the Carmona Decree that erased the Constitution and dissolved every public institution overnight.
She worked hand in hand with Washington to justify regime change, using her platform to demand foreign military intervention to “liberate” Venezuela through force.
She cheered on Donald Trump’s threats of invasion and his naval deployments in the Caribbean, a show of force that risks igniting regional war under the pretext of “combating narcotrafficking.” While Trump sent warships and froze assets, Machado stood ready to serve as his local proxy, promising to deliver Venezuela’s sovereignty on a silver platter.
She pushed for the U.S. sanctions that strangled the economy, knowing exactly who would pay the price: the poor, the sick, the working class.
She helped construct the so-called “interim government” a Washington backed puppet show run by a self-appointed “president” who looted Venezuela’s resources abroad while children at home went hungry.
She vows to reopen Venezuela’s embassy in Jerusalem, aligning herself openly with the same apartheid state that bombs hospitals and calls it self-defense.
Now she wants to hand over the country’s oil, water, and infrastructure to private corporations. This is the same recipe that made Latin America the laboratory of neoliberal misery in the 1990s.

Machado was also one of the political architects of La Salida, the 2014 opposition campaign that called for escalated protests, including guarimba tactics. Those weren’t “peaceful protests” as the foreign press claimed; they were organized barricades meant to paralyze the country and force the government’s fall. Streets were blocked with burning trash and barbed wire, buses carrying workers were torched, and people suspected of being Chavista were beaten or killed. Even ambulances and doctors were attacked. Some Cuban medical brigades were nearly burned alive. Public buildings, food trucks, and schools were destroyed. Entire neighborhoods were held hostage by fear while opposition leaders like Machado cheered from the sidelines and called it “resistance.”

She praises Trump’s “decisive action” against what she calls a “criminal enterprise,” aligning herself with the same man who cages migrant children and tears families apart under ICE’s watch, while Venezuelan mothers search for their children disappeared by U.S. migration policies.

Machado isn’t a symbol of peace or progress. She is part of a global alliance between fascism, Zionism, and neoliberalism, an axis that justifies domination in the language of democracy and peace. In Venezuela, that alliance has meant coups, sanctions, and privatization. In Gaza, it means genocide and the erasure of a people. The ideology is the same: a belief that some lives are disposable, that sovereignty is negotiable, and that violence can be sold as order.

If Henry Kissinger could win a Peace Prize, why not María Corina Machado? Maybe next year they’ll give one to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for “compassion under occupation.”

Every time this award is handed to an architect of violence disguised as diplomacy, it spits in the face of those who actually fight for peace: the Palestinian medics digging bodies from rubble, the journalists risking their lives in Gaza to document the truth and the humanitarian workers of the Flotilla sailing to break the siege and deliver aid to starving children in Gaza, with nothing but courage and conviction.

But real peace is not negotiated in boardrooms or awarded on stages. Real peace is built by women organizing food networks during blockades, by Indigenous communities defending rivers from extraction, by workers who refuse to be starved into obedience, by Venezuelan mothers mobilizing to demand the return of children seized under U.S. ICE and migration policies and by nations that choose sovereignty over servitude. That’s the peace Venezuela, Cuba, Palestine, and every nation of the Global South deserves.

Tell the Nobel Committee: The Peace Prize belongs to Gaza’s journalists, not María Corina Machado!

And Join our Venezuela Rapid Response Team!

October 11, 2025 Posted by Christina Macpherson | spinbuster | Leave a comment

A crack in the AUKUS public relations pressure hull!

by Rex Patrick | Oct 5, 2025 , https://michaelwest.com.au/a-crack-in-the-aukus-pr-pressure-hull/

AUKUS is a hugely expensive Defence project facing considerable and, many argue, insurmountable hurdles. But does Defence have a Plan B? Rex Patrick reveals a crack in Defence PR’s high tensile pressure hull steel.

There has to be an AUKUS Plan B, surely. So MWM FOI’ed the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) to find out.

Hit ‘em with your Talking Points.

In response, the ASA partially released one document showing ‘talking points’ that had been given to the Project lead, Vice Admiral Jonathon Mead, in case he was asked about the US’s AUKUS review.

At first glance, MWM thought that the ASA’s back-up plan to defend the Nation was to

“roll out some talking points to fire at an approaching enemy.“

roll out some talking points to fire at an approaching enemy.

But a closer look revealed more.

A Crack in the Submarine Pressure Hull

The talking points weren’t the only documents.

Despite the public bravado, the FOI decision shows that there is some discussion going on behind the scenes.

There were three more documents that met the terms of MWM’s request. The decision letter reveals that the Government has been discussing with our AUKUS partners, and internally, on what to do if it all goes to hell in a nuclear handbasket.

Self-confidence Bluster Exposed

The ASA has claimed the documents are sensitive (something we’ll push back on with an appeal), and so we can’t see the exact details of what’s being said.

But we know there are conversations taking place.

“That’s a good thing.“

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AUKUS is a hugely expensive Defence project facing considerable and, many argue, insurmountable hurdles. But does Defence have a Plan B? Rex Patrick reveals a crack in Defence PR’s high tensile pressure hull steel.

There has to be an AUKUS Plan B, surely. So MWM FOI’ed the Australian Submarine Agency (ASA) to find out.

FOI Asking about a Plan B

Hit ‘em with your Talking Points.

In response, the ASA partially released one document showing ‘talking points’ that had been given to the Project lead, Vice Admiral Jonathon Mead, in case he was asked about the US’s AUKUS review.

US AUKUS Review talking Points (Source: Defence)

At first glance, MWM thought that the ASA’s back-up plan to defend the Nation was to

roll out some talking points to fire at an approaching enemy.

But a closer look revealed more.

A Crack in the Submarine Pressure Hull

The talking points weren’t the only documents.

Despite the public bravado, the FOI decision shows that there is some discussion going on behind the scenes.

More Documents about Plan B (Source: Defence)

There were three more documents that met the terms of MWM’s request. The decision letter reveals that the Government has been discussing with our AUKUS partners, and internally, on what to do if it all goes to hell in a nuclear handbasket.

Plan B Talk Going On (Source: Defence)

Self-confidence Bluster Exposed

The ASA has claimed the documents are sensitive (something we’ll push back on with an appeal), and so we can’t see the exact details of what’s being said.

But we know there are conversations taking place.

That’s a good thing.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge, commenting on the FOI decision, said, “Labor has managed to combine two of their worst behaviours in one go here, using exemptions in FOI to refuse to release documents while secretly doubling down on a plan B for AUKUS. I don’t think treating the Australian public like mushrooms is a viable long-term political strategy for Albanese”.

It’s Senate Estimates this coming week. The Coalition is a unity cheer squad with Labor when it comes to AUKUS, so we won’t see them probing hard on a Plan B. Hopefully, Shoebridge will squeeze some more out of Defence, at least until MWM’s FOI appeal is finalised.

For now, at least, we now know the ASA’s public AUKUS bluster is a deception. They’re not so confident after all.

Rex Patrick

Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and, earlier, a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is also known as the “Transparency Warrior.”