These Scents Were Once Erased by Humans. Now They’re Back. Atmos
Artificial Intelligence and Animal Minds 3 Quarks Daily
Weed Could Be Wrecking Your Heart – Study Uncovers Dangers of Smoking and Edibles SciTech Daily
See the Milky Way dazzle during a lunar eclipse — May’s best science images Nature
COVID-19/Pandemics
RFK Jr. yanks pandemic vaccine funding as Moderna reports positive results Ars Technica
Hong Kong Covid levels ease from recent peak, but set to persist in coming months SCMP
Researchers report surge in at-home heart attacks and cardiac deaths since COVID pandemic News Medical
Climate/Environment
Half of world’s population endured extra month of extreme heat due to climate change, experts say AP
How seaweed is a powerful, yet surprising, climate solution The Conversation
In-office work mandates are bad for the environment The Hill
China?
Most countries around the world now recognize that China provides superior, more affordable technology to help their people achieve prosperity.
We have already won. 🇨🇳 pic.twitter.com/zsSlSoVPmn
— President Xi Jinping – Commentary (@PresidentXiCHN) May 30, 2025
I recommend listening to Nixon’s post-presidential interviews.
There are lots of things to say about him — Goldwater said Nixon was the most shameless liar he ever met — but he was at the center of key 20th Century events for decades.
Here his explains why he went to China: pic.twitter.com/SputyvV9Ba
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) June 23, 2024
U.S.-China Trade Truce Risks Falling Apart Over Rare-Earth Exports WSJ
China’s navy conducts combat patrols near disputed South China Sea shoal Al Jazeera
US defense chief claims China plans to ‘invade’ Taiwan in 2027 Andolu Agency
South of the Border
Confusion and concern loom over Mexico’s judicial election Al Jazeera
Brazil Escalates Push for Online Content Regulation Reclaim the Net
Over a barrel: lack of sugar throws Cuba’s rum industry into crisis The Guardian
European Disunion
Rémi Brague. False Europe Communion and Liberation
EU members losing patience over Hungary’s restrictive rule of law trends European Interest
Bulgarian nationalists protest government plans to adopt the euro currency The Independent
Old Blighty
Britain’s 15 greatest circular walks The Telegraph
UK should support Ukraine in restoring nuclear arsenal, says British military expert Espreso
Social housing in crisis as tenants’ complaints go through the roof Landlord Zone
Israel v. The Resistance
Israeli Mossad named as funder of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation The Grayzone
A little displaced girl from Gaza carried her wounded sister for more than two kilometres.
Palestinian children are the bravest. pic.twitter.com/L9omr6CA5Z
— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis__) May 30, 2025
Opposition to Gaza war grows among Israeli soldiers as strikes ramp up NBC News
Food for Gaza decays in Jordan warehouses as Israel restricts aid NPR
How controversial US-Israeli backed Gaza aid plan turned to chaos BBC
Israel is currently in the process of destroying the entire Palestinian-Bedouin village of Al-Sir. 3000 men, women, children, elderly, will be left without a roof over their heads in the scorching heat of the Naqab desert. Those are the supposedly equal “Arab-Israeli” citizens. https://t.co/EMw7Y9hnqV
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) May 30, 2025
New Not-So-Cold War
🇨🇳🇮🇳🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺 TRADE WAR: “500% tariff on India and China”
Graham: “The game that Putin’s been playing is about to change, he’s gonna be hit and hit hard by the US!”
Blumenthal: “500% tariffs on anybody who buys Putin’s oil, gas or petrochemicals! 500% tariff on India, on China!” pic.twitter.com/fjZgtErEst
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) May 31, 2025
Russia claims new advances in Ukraine’s Donetsk, Sumy regions Andolu Agency
Kyiv’s allies have lifted restrictions on Ukraine attacking targets inside Russia – here’s what that means for the war The Conversation
Russia Is Closing in on Ukraine’s Tech Advantage The National Interest
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Fifth Circuit Affirms Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in Cloud Storage in Dropbox Case Reclaim the Net
Meta plans to replace humans with AI to assess privacy and societal risks NPR
Oregon Expands Consumer Privacy Law to Include Auto Manufacturers—and Possibly Their Dealerships The National Law Review
Imperial Collapse Watch
Richmond Boils Over The American Conservative
Exclusive: LA Poured Over $1 Billion into Homeless Housing—But Thousands of Units Sit Empty Westside Current
California Gov. Gavin Newsom blames state’s homeless rates on local officials NPR
Trump 2.0
American science put on starvation diet The Register
Trump White House steps up attacks on courts after tariff ruling The Hill
Now Trump is traveling to Pittsburgh to celebrate Japan’s takeover of US Steel CNN
Trump administration to prioritize ‘patriotic Americans’ for federal jobs Politico
DOGE
DOGE Is Busier Than Ever—and Trump Says Elon Musk Is ‘Really Not Leaving’ Wired
Elon Musk’s DOGE savings dwarfed by deficit-ballooning Trump bill Axios
Democrat Death Watch
Why can’t Democrats take advantage of all this obvious Republican failure? | Opinion USA Today
Arizona Democrats keep fumbling the ball that Republicans keep dropping | Opinion AZ Central
Who Is Robin Webb? Democratic Lawmaker Switches Party to Become Republican Newsweek
Immigration
Trump immigration enforcement hampered by detention capacity, Florida sheriff warns NY Post
Our No Longer Free Press
Freedom of the press or favor for Pete Hegseth? MAGA Pentagon reporter fired after scathing commentary The Economic Times
Trump Makes NPR’s Legal Case Extra Easy By Admitting Retaliatory Motives In Executive Order Title techdirt
Mr. Market Is Moody
Weekly Commentary: TACO and Dumpling Credit Bubble Bulletin
Stocks finish lower but notch strong monthly gain despite tariff worries Reuters
Jamie Dimon: Government Spending Will Cause ‘Crisis’ in Bond Market PYMNTS
AI
Google’s Veo 3 AI video generator is unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The world isn’t ready. Mashable
Afterlife: The unseen lives of AI actors between prompts. (Made with Veo 3) pic.twitter.com/FwhYEM7Y8Q
— Hashem Al-Ghaili (@HashemGhaili) May 27, 2025
AI and the Death of Literary Criticism Quillette
Amazon Programmers Say What Happened After Turn to AI Was Dark Futurism
College grads hit a wall: Tech jobs dry up amid AI boom Yahoo Finance
The Bezzle
Abused, exploited: How two Africans became trapped in a cyber-scam in Laos Al Jazeera
A teen died after being blackmailed with A.I.-generated nudes. His family is fighting for change CBS News
US Authorities Charge Six Individuals in Connection to Alleged $66,000,000 Food Stamp Fraud Scheme The Daily HODL
Guillotine Watch
Here is the dress! I KNEW when Mags wore this dress the UK was screwed! Remember Catherine’s blue dress that everyone wanted one just like it – it was affordable. Then this twit comes out in a $75,000 see thru dress!! pic.twitter.com/I96mgW0ZSS
— SayCheez (@JanetWinslow11) November 24, 2020
françoise hardy wearing a paco rabanne dress considered the most expensive dress in the world it needed 4 bodyguards pic.twitter.com/VMs7aUvK5Z
— gaia (@cxshewmilk) April 5, 2023
Antidote du jour (via)
And a bonus:
Baby goats and sheep
pic.twitter.com/gCpePtRxlD— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) May 28, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
106 comments
Comments are closed.
“Freedom of the press or favor for Pete Hegseth? MAGA Pentagon reporter fired after scathing commentary”
The Trump White House seems to be very hostile to any criticism coming from the press, even if it is coming from MAGA friendly reporters. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt sometimes flies off the handle at reporters asking questions, which when you think about it is kinda their job. Fortunately there will be no consequences over this trend and there will never be any blowback for the Trump Cabinet. (tick, tick, tick, tick, tick..)
You know what’s missing this go round from the Trump Show version 2.0 for the most part, are the rallies…
…which by their absence speaks volumes on his fear of being repudiated in public by a less than adoring audience
Imagine if the assembled crowd started chanting TACO, TACO, TACO.
And of course in true Let’s Go Brandon fashion, would be construed by the likes of the NY Post as:
Take a Bow, Take a Bow, Take a Bow!
He’s too busy meddling in everything to go to rallies. It’s Donald’s learning curve. We just live in it.
(growls) He already had his learning curve – from 2016 to 2020.
He has a learning curve disability, and requires special education classes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/gabbard-considering-ways-revamp-trumps-intelligence-briefing-rcna209805
Gabbard considering ways to revamp Trump’s intelligence briefing
One idea is to make the briefing, which according to his schedule Trump has been taking less often than his predecessors, a video that looks like Fox News.
I predicted that Gabbard would never get involved in any way with Trump. How very wrong I was. Why did she do it? What did she think she would achieve?
She has stepped in the dogtrump and she will have dogtrump on her shoes for the rest of her life.
If he’s seen the public reaction to Medicaid cuts in red state town halls he will avoid rallies. Or rather if someone has told him about them, I doubt those reaction have been covered on Fox.
for the overlap of fans of “Star Wars ” and history-hagiography-historigraphy…
a 10 min. video essay on Veo 3 and its the potential for the destruction of history/politics, using the “Biggs Darklighter theatrical cut” as an allegory for historical memory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A7Leaq1R-s
> … it’s going to make politics an absolute nightmare of b*s*, the likes of which we have only whiffed the faintest bile-curdling taste.
A mashup of a Klein bottle, the death of the T-1000, and the greeting image from Goetse.com, could be the beginning of an adequate artistic representation.
Bonus: Retro version.
Can’t wait for the “historical’ footage to emerge of L.B. Johnson lining up a sniper’s rifle in the Texas School Book Depository while a bound and gagged Lee Harvey Oswald struggles in the background. I hope that they don’t spoil it with dramatic background music.
“for the overlap of fans of “Star Wars ” and history-hagiography-historigraphy…”
Oh dear, you’ve targeted my cartoonishly niche interest range with the precision of a Force-guided proton torpedo and now all the nerd is spilling out. I thought I was done with hollywood adjacent video essays but I have to watch this one, thank you.
I know you’re a Star Wars Fan rather than a purely Star Trek fan because you got the kind of torpedo correct. In ST it’s “photon” whilst in ST:IV it’s clearly stated to be a PROTON torpedo. Well done.
/geek
C’mon, who’s going to mess up the difference between atomic vs. massless munitions? Don’t they teach the kids this stuff in school nowadays?
Maybe at Montessori.
I wonder if this can be used to “despecialize” Star Wars into high def? There are the de-specialized editions floating around that are quite good, sort of 720p-ish remastered, considering that they came from abandoned 8mm? film and laser disc copies of the original version of the films, but perhaps this’ll upscale it all.
Might have to deal with Vader having six fingers though.
eventually yes, theoretically.
don’t be surprised if there is a copyright “firmware-AI” that prevents a user from manipulating copyrighted material…
an AI developer is going to get “Kazaa-ed” eventually
35mm, not 8mm.
But yes, some original 35mm scans were used in that project.
re “Why can’t Democrats take advantage of all this obvious Republican failure?” USA Today May 31, by Sara Pequeno, a very young editorialist.
The second sentence almost made me stop reading: “I agree with the core value of the party, that a strong centralized government that supports social safety nets lead to a better country.” This person badly needs to read Thomas Frank.
But it’s a Gannett editorial, so it’s short; thus, I read through and found a glimmer of understanding at the end: “I want the Democratic Party to be better. I’m just not sure that’s what party leaders want.” Well, she might be on to something! Perhaps Young Sara might figure it out?
lemme edit that for her: a strong centralized government leads to more efficiently siphoning resources to the top 0.1%, whether that elite is created by adherence to a party dogma or a low estate tax
Similar thought: the other hand of the ruling caste will offer Hope-&-Change.2.1 as the public mood sours upon current management to the point of near-rebellion: the dems will serve yet again as the safety-valve to prevent fundamental changes from happening.
In our lifetimes, how many times have we seen this script used? It seems worn-out and tired, but it’s tried-and-true, and it’s always new to someone.
LawnDart: “[A]lways new to someone.” Sadly true, and exacerbated by “goldfish brain.” Some version of the script will always work, and we are on an accelerated timeline of forgetting.
The Democratic Party is taking advantage of it, just not in the way that most people think.
All of this Republican malfeasance serves as an excellent backdrop for DNC fundraising during the mid-terms and 2028. They do not intend to to anything about the issues that they are using to fundraise on, of course, because this is all about optics for the Democratic Party rather than doing anything substantial.
The true purpose of the Democratic Party is that of a corporate investment platform for its wealthy donors. Whether or not it manages to win a few elections along the way is beside the point for its leadership.
Third vacation homes and Dressage lessons for Madison, is what it is all about.
Performance not required.
Even though our region is rosy red the remnants of our local newspaper are run by what used to be Gannet and are somewhat Dem. Meanwhile even Chuck Todd admits the Dems are to blame for Trump (while trying to let himself off the hook).
The Dems are merely biding their time with their wet finger in the air–trying to decide which way the wind is blowing.
This is the party that doubled childhood poverty and threw people off Medicaid by ending the emergency declaration for an ongoing Pandemic that they disappeared.
These people cannot be redeemed.
At least Republicans say the quiet part out loud.
“Bulgarian nationalists protest government plans to adopt the euro currency”
‘President Rumen Radev encouraged the anti-euro voices by proposing earlier this month a referendum on the currency, citing public concerns over inflation and purchasing power. The proposal was turned down by the pro-European majority in parliament, which accused Radev of acting in favor of Moscow with his last-minute attempt to sabotage the euro adoption, aimed at deepening European integration amid growing geopolitical tensions.’
Those Bulgarian nationalists know that they are having soon a Hotel California moment. That once they are in, that’s it. The EU then as all the tools it needs to control Bulgaria. It seems too that the Bulgarian parliament have already adopted those EU European values. That when the President suggested a democratic referendum, that they shot him down and virtually called him a Putinist. Only Putin allows referendums so that is the same as being a Putinist, right?
I was planning to spoil my vote today but seeing this news in the morning makes me go vote Nawrocki together with my conservative father for the first time. PiS openly declares opposition to joining the zonE.
In for a penny, in for a pound. I say, get the full monty and adopt $.
Not $TRUMP coin?
I thought about putting that, but opted for the oldschool vibes. Penny, pound, euro, dollar.
A mark, a yen, a buck or a pound …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIAXG_QcQNU&t=13s
Would that make you a $TRUMPet?
Lev-ity is good.
This is the most uninformative article and it is so by design. It’s the lazy and effective way to slant the impressions of the uninformed and predisposed to certain biases readers.
Radev is a demagogue because he’s simply using this issue to help launch his post-presidential political career. He could have done something about a referendum as far back as 3 years ago, but didn’t. It suits him just fine to have his call rejected since now he can claim to be fighting for the downtrodden and disenfranchised, which he isn’t really. That said, the fact is that Radev is correct to call for a referendum, the supporters of the Euro are wrong to block it. It’s also lazy and quite in EU establishment form to call anything and anyone who doesn’t tow the establishment line “pro-Russian.” In Radev’s case, that’s also for the other mortal sin: for calling for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.
Another omission by the article is that it neglects to mention the currency board, which has been in effect since 1997. It started as a peg to the Deutsche mark, now the lev pegged to the Euro. Given the board, the rush to join the EZ now is purely political and geopolitical, with various political actors seeking to curry favors abroad and wash certain Magnitsky Act-related sins.
Is Bulgaria ready to adopt the Euro? Polls show that most people don’t think so, even as they are in favor of adopting it eventually. Just this morning I was talking with a banker friend on just this very topic. She is an exec in one of the largest BG banks and foresees trouble – with the adoption of the Euro banks will no longer be required to maintain 12% reserves, instead they will be required to maintain just 1%. That will lead to an explosion of lending, which is problematic for two main reasons. The first is that there already exists an incredible housing bubble, with home values in Sofia exceeding those in cities such as Rome and Vienna. That in the poorest EU member. Second, the financial literacy in the general population is simply awful. Indebtedness with quick loans is high and it’s not simply a matter of people being poor, as they are taken out to finance discretionary purchases such as vacations and buying the latest IPhone model. With bank reserves now released to be available to loan out, the danger should be quite apparent to all.
Last but not least, food prices here are already higher for the same product than they are in Western Europe. Be it President-brand butter or Lindt chocolates, the prices are often >50% higher than in Germany or the UK. Now the prices are preemptively increasing, as a way to round-up in advance. The inflation is being manipulated the government by reducing the cost of such things as the overnight hospitalization co-pay.
I can go on and on, but I believe I’ve made my point about the quality and depth of The Independent’s “reporting.” I should add that I am not a fan of neither Radev nor the nationalist parties. Nor am I fan of the government, which is the latest in a long line of corrupt governments captured by the mafia and the oligarchs. Something that doesn’t seem to bother neither the EU nor the US, as we all know that the corrupt make for easy to control compradors. The shortsightedness of this is obvious as well.
The EU requires banks to maintain only 1% in reserves? That’s trouble on a stick that.
Having Elon as a neighbor–
Elon’s trip to Mars is costing one poor town a lot. No, it’s not those unfortunate citizens of “Muskville” in south Texas. This report is about a town near Memphis where Elon is building massive data centers powered by leased temporary gas turbines which are spewing old-fashioned pollution that’s making people sick. Neither the bought-off local politicians nor our new EPA head, Lee Zeldin, plan to do a damn thing about it.
As the community activist points out toward the end of the piece, this is the billionaires’ vision for every town. The Earth is a sacrifice zone to get Musk and his loony fellow billionaires off-planet.
Luigi’s lawyers should make self-defense the cornerstone of the defendant’s case.
Elon’s trip to Mars, not be confused with Méliès’ Trip to the Moon, which did as much with a shoestring budget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLVChRVfZ74
Wasn’t he also going to bore a tunnel under Los Angeles? There are the Tech Bro’s good ideas and then all their other ideas. Whatever happened to Google Glass?
Mike Judge made an HBO series about Silicon Valley and it was a comedy (a funny one).Tech doom like Trump doom may have a competence problem.
Everyone is the butt of the joke.
People will suffer and no billionaires will ever leave the planet (except via a pine box).
It’s a lose-lose scenario.
Brilliant!
Gee, whatever happened to Luigi? I must have missed that “speedy and public trial” the Bill of Rights talks about. And whatever happened to the investigations of those two Trump assassination attempts? Very curious.
In reality, Qasr al-Sir in the Negev has never been occupied. The village recently became incorporated and permanent. Thus Israel is constructing water, sewer, electric, and road infrastructure before building permanent homes. All paid for by the state. This includes irrigation for agriculture and vocational training to make the community self-sustaining.
For more than one hundred years, Bedouins and Israelis have been allies because of the Bedouins’ historical mistreatment at the hands of the dominating Arab Sunnah, who consider Bedouins to be heretics, ethnically alien, and fit only for subjugation.
Unless one is here to get an inoculating dose of disinformation layered into standard journalistic faire, so as to understand the incentives to which others may respond. One has to ask oneself, “How susceptible to propaganda am I?”
Because these narratives are conceived to entice the already cynical into political positions wholly incompatible with the larger communities in which you live. To present a bete noire which is entirely irrational: simultaneously on the precipice of defeat and dominating the defenseless. If you can’t understand the incentives of others, you will be lost, unable to achieve what is in your best interests, but thirst for more evidence of estrangement and click more.
Anyone else wonder if they’re looking to blame the damage done to our hearts and blood vessels by Covid on cannabis smoking and edibles?
It’s not ‘our‘ fault, it’s ‘your‘ fault.
Could never see that coming /snk.
Stone the stoners!
inhaling all plant smoke is bad….whether it’s a 3rd-world woman cooking over an open flame or something rolled up from a factory. fummy how decades were spent to get rid of cigarettes, but states have no prob with cannabis (cuz it’s a mew revenue stream)
just saying, not lecturing. sincerely ex-KOOL imbiber, lol
Its more the “we studied 55 people in the same geographical area and concluded X”
That tells us we need to do broader research on the topic – that is not a large enough sample size, nor diverse enough, to come to a firm conclusion.
Its more the sample size and geographical restrictions.
That study isn’t diverse or large enough to draw mass conclusions.
But good enough for the usual could/may/might science news article headline. All kinds of things could/may/might be true if you have a small enough sample and squint real hard looking at the data.
You don’t smoke edibles, though.
Yes.
All I know is that my one major covid incident gave me a vascular crisis that took months to rectify itself (hopefully rectified i should say)
I would be interested in your covid vaccinations and timing.
On a related note, I learned a new song today – Όταν καπνίζει ο λουλάς.
Smoke ’em if you got ’em.
Let me hear those balalaikas ringing out
And a honky tonk piano if I ever heard one
re: journalism
JUNGE WELT
A rarity – German interview with Patrick Lawrence!
machine-translation
Journalism against the powerful
“I was finally able to find my voice again”
On writing as a foreign correspondent, the loss of independence and credibility, and new freedoms offered by alternative media. A conversation with Patrick Lawrence
Interview: Dieter Reinisch, Vienna
https://archive.is/5IDo2
“UK should support Ukraine in restoring nuclear arsenal, says British military expert”
‘Retired British Colonel Richard Kemp believes the UK should help ensure Ukraine’s Defense Forces regain nuclear weapons in their arsenal’
He’s lying his face off of course. The Ukraine never had nukes back in the day. What they did have was nukes stationed in their territory by the USSR but the Ukrainians never had the codes for them. That was retained by Moscow. And one of the triggers for the Russian invasion of the Ukraine was Zelensky going around the last Munich Conference before the war telling everybody that the Ukraine was going to get nukes with none of the NATO people there putting him in his place. But if there is one thing that the Russians are sure of is that Nazis with Nukes is a really, really bad idea. Does that retired colonel realize this?
Well, Germany has been nuclear (as nuclear as Ukraine was, at least) since 1950s (I think), so there is that… (In the sense that US nukes in Germany were “shared” with German)…
While capable, and after having sought a joint French-German(Italian) nuclear European bomb program until 1958, US did pressure Germany to give it up for real. Eventually Kennedy wanted some assurance to offer the Russians who did have a red line vis a vis German nukes. Germans however remained a favourite for third parties when seeking help on this issue.
btw. Switzerland too had a phase of pushing for nukes promoted by their most famous nuclear physicist Paul Scherrer. A secret story that became known a couple of years ago.
Rev Kev: He’s lying his face off of course.
You may be giving Kemp too much credit by saying he’s lying, though I’d prefer it if he was.
It’s possible that he’s simply too ignorant to understand that, firstly, sans codes thermonuclear fusion weapons — H-bombs — are unusable, and, secondly, all-important differences exist between those vastly complicated devices, which are miniaturizable to be warheads on missiles, and fission-based A-bombs whose construction only requires sufficient enriched fissile material, but are so cumbersome they must be offloaded onto a target off a bomber or, conceivably, the back of a truck. i.e they’d be little strategic use in 2025 against the Russian Federation.
I know — Kemp’s a retired colonel, you say, and must know this stuff. But, firstly, say the word “nukes” and most people’s brain close down, as they imagine it’s all simply one thing, rather than a vast range of possible technologies, military and civil; and, secondly, the experience of the last few years has been an education that ‘elites’ in the West are dismayingly impervious to real-world technical knowledge — say, of supply lines, for another instance.
vast range of possible technologies
I was wondering yesterday what has happened to the neutron bomb…
seems like it would be pretty popular amongst the “in” crowd
A thermonuclear device in the 10 megatons-and-below range in 2025 is frequently ‘dial-a-yield,’ and so can be set to produce maximum lethal neutron radiation and minimized heat/energy release
It can be set to a neutron bomb, in other words.
Essentially, because a thermonuclear weapon is a three-stage device, in which an initial fission explosion is boosted by a radiation-imploded fusion second stage boost producing a third stage thermonuclear blast hundreds of times greater than an atomic bomb’s, a great deal of variation is enabled in terms of their design and yield.
NYT, Nov. 21, 2024
“(…)
So U.S. and European officials are discussing deterrence as a possible security guarantee for Ukraine, such as stockpiling a conventional arsenal sufficient to strike a punishing blow if Russia violates a cease-fire.
Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.
(…)”
Trump’s Vow to End the War Could Leave Ukraine With Few Options
One question is whether the new administration and Europe will provide security guarantees to prevent Russia from taking more territory.
https://archive.is/4G56L
Which most likely means that in reality they did try to get those nukes to them Nazis and failed.
I still find the explanation of Oreshnik used against Yuzhmash for this reason very convincing.
Of course he does not realize all this.
These people are so incredibly dishonest, dumb, uneducated, and many many other adjectives I cannot think of right now, it just defies all sanity and decency.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I was paying a LOT of attention to the nukes issue when USSR dissolved and part of it was that all nukes would be relocated to the new Russian Federation. In practice this meant only Ukraine and Kazakstan giving up nukes. They agreed to give up their nukes in return for not becoming satellite states of other organisations *cough*NATO* *cough*EU*cough.
Didn’t quite work out, eh?
Whether my recollection is correct or your explanation is, Ukraine CANNOT use nukes. Full stop.
fwiw
What if Ukraine had kept its nuclear weapons?
Some say Kyiv would have been in a better position today if it hadn’t been disarmed following the fall of the Soviet Union.
by Daniel Larison
Jan 02, 2023
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/01/02/what-if-ukraine-had-kept-its-nuclear-weapons/
When Ukraine Traded Nuclear Weapons for Security Assurances: An Interview with Mariana Budjeryn
April 2022
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/interviews/when-ukraine-traded-nuclear-weapons-security-assurances-interview-mariana
(why scientists/historians in recent years have photos showing them as if they were models or some fancy theatre actors I don´t get)
Budjeryn book:
https://www.amazon.com/Inheriting-Bomb-Collapse-Disarmament-Contemporary/dp/1421445867/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=inheriting+the+bomb+mariana&qid=1672416361&sprefix=inheriting+the+bomb%2Caps%2C110&sr=8-1
But needless to say Budjeryn thinks Putin is intent on annihilating Ukrainian identity. etc.
Belarus also had some as I recall, but did not make a fuss. These weapons were part of the old Soviet strategic nuclear arsenal, targeted against (probably) the United States. The old Soviet firing chain was very centralised, and the missiles were unusable. The Ukrainians could have been very awkward about having them removed, but in the end they decided not to antagonise the West unduly, and agreed to give them up in return for security guarantees from Russia, Britain and the US, who promised to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine. Ukraine would then be treated as a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT. There were no political undertakings by Ukraine, other than to consult. The Budapest Memorandum was a series of non-binding political undertakings by Russia, Britain and the US.
I have no idea who this Colonel is but he was probably doing his officer training then. Such people know nothing about nuclear issues, and are not required to anyway.
Poppycock is the default setting for the chaps of the British officer cadre.
With mighty intellects like this, no wonder we can only rely on the Russians to win European wars.
That antidote looks as if it were painted by Peter Max…
Those essays Trump is requiring of applicants for federal jobs. The perfect task for AI.
Any busy work on job applications is for AI.
I was recently asked to answer the following for a job (I work in marketing):
Who is our audience?
How would you reach them?
What challenges do we have as an org?
These are all questions that groups of people would sit around a table and discuss over data and other learnings but I am expected to answer them before you even phone screen me?!
Used AI to answer 90% of that BS
https://x.com/jdcmedlock/status/1928902533247795334/photo/1
Just wait until Trump suggests that if Social Security was handed over to Wall Street to run, the returns would be beautiful and if they don’t then everybody will be broke.
Half of world’s population endured extra month of extreme heat due to climate change, experts say AP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2 ways to beat the heat without a/c
At the turn on Hwy 198 to Mineral King road yesterday at high noon it was 98 degrees, by the time i’d gotten to my cabin it was a picture perfect 74 degrees @ 6,900 feet.
Most of us don’t have a half-pint Himalaya in our backyard, nor a domicile therein, which leaves us the second option…
Ideally a cave is perfect in that they stay a constant temperature that’s probably a bit chilly in the mid 50’s or so, bring a jumper!
Most of us don’t have in excess of 240 caves in our backyard-unlike here in Sequoia NP, so that’s a no low go, but you can make artificial caves that could hold hundreds of not thousands of people when Hades comes calling and its a hundred and Hell outside.
I’d imagine for the cost of a F-35 you could build a hundred of these underground heat shelters~
Our region is chock full of caves although mostly a bit more to the west. Usually though you have to pay to go in. All that limestone is a remnant of ancient seas–perhaps a preview of coming attractions once the poles melt.
Mammoth Cave NP is worth a visit.
The problem with caves is while they protect you from the heat, eventually you’ll be emerging into a dead wasteland. Kinda why nuke bunkers lost their appeal, why bother when you won’t want to come out?
Heat waves can last awhile, but once they’re over you can go back to your regularly scheduled life.
H bombs are a bit of a different scenario~
cfraenkel: Kinda why nuke bunkers lost their appeal, why bother when you won’t want to come out?
Oh, come on. Doctor Strangelove answered that one.
Dr. Strangelove – “An astonishingly good idea”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZct-itCwPE
Why would you want to come out with the proper breeding techniques and male-female ratio?
You’ve got it. This is what I keep preaching. Eventually, everybody is going to have to go underground. I expect it’ll start in ten years or so, with rich people building somewhat deeper bunkers, with bedrooms and kitchens. Then there’ll be a fad, like the “fallout” shelters of the 1950s. Eventually, the government is going to have to build accommodations for families deeper underground. See Isaac Asimov, Caves of Steel, or his descriptions of Trantor. Of course, a lot of people are going to die before they get the cities built.
Credit bubble bulletin….
wow, thats pretty dense reading there…
I note this one peculiarity…
May 26 – Bloomberg (Erica Yokoyama): “Japan lost its position as the world’s largest creditor nation for the first time in 34 years, giving up the title to Germany despite posting a record amount of overseas assets. Japan’s net external assets reached ¥533.05 trillion ($3.7 trillion) at the end of 2024… While the figure marked an all-time high, it was overtaken by Germany, whose net external assets totaled ¥569.7 trillion.
A sign of german deindustrialisation? Or something else…
later the blurb notes that japan overtook germany in 1991…hmmm…food for thought
Northern lights may once again be visible deep into mid latitudes tonight as geomagnetic storm conditions continue to wreak havoc with Earth’s magnetic field.
https://www.space.com/stargazing/auroras/aurora-alert-ongoing-powerful-geomagnetic-storm-could-spark-more-northern-lights-across-the-us-tonight
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The aurora borealis over the Rocky Mountains in the United States was so bright that the glow woke gold miners, who were reported to have begun to prepare breakfast because they thought it was morning. It was also reported that people in the north-eastern United States could read a newspaper by the aurora’s light.
Those who happened to be out late on Thursday night had an opportunity of witnessing another magnificent display of the auroral lights. The phenomenon was very similar to the display on Sunday night, though at times the light was, if possible, more brilliant, and the prismatic hues more varied and gorgeous. The light appeared to cover the whole firmament, apparently like a luminous cloud, through which the stars of the larger magnitude indistinctly shone. The light was greater than that of the moon at its full, but had an indescribable softness and delicacy that seemed to envelop everything upon which it rested. Between 12 and 1 o’clock, when the display was at its full brilliancy, the quiet streets of the city resting under this strange light, presented a beautiful as well as singular appearance. (Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser newspaper)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
Some rather amazing aurora action last night over Lake Almanor here in Cali…
https://www.activenorcal.com/northern-lights-make-glorious-return-to-the-skies-of-northern-california/
There’s been a bit of a show down here as well…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-30/aurora-australis-southern-lights-may-2025-geomagentic-storm/105357994
The shit has hit the fan big time now:
Russia’s strategic bomber fleet burns!
Drones were lunched from trucks near 4 airfields deep inside Russia.
More than 40 planes destroyed at:
– Olenya Air Base in Murmansk
– Belaya Air Base in Irkutsk
– Ivanovo Air Base in Ivanovo
– Dyagilevo Air Base Ryazan
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/playing-with-fire
There is no argument Putin can have now for stopping the electric war against Ukraine. I cannot think of any other more appropriate retaliation.
The Ukrainians also blew two bridges causing train crashes that killed 7 people and injured 71 other people. In addition, there were drone attacks in Siberia and Murmansk-
https://www.rt.com/russia/618435-two-regions-bridges-blown/
I agree with your assessment. Time to shut off the electricity in the Ukraine. Trump might feign ignorance that the Ukrainians were going to do all this but who is going to believe him? The Russians know that when they hit back the Ukraine hard in return, that Trump will say that Putin has gone CRAZY again for no reason whatsoever.
Dovetail that with this report:
Massive security blunder: Russian nuclear site blueprints exposed in public procurement database
Other reports say the deed was done by air launched, French manufactured storm shadow missiles.
https://x.com/Zlatti_71/status/1929191294196130137
Per Brian Berletic: “Any op like this would require ISR only the United States could provide, and constant updates all the way up until the decision to launch the operation was made – and then additional ISR from the US to assess the outcome.
“In other words, the US enabled this attack on Russia’s strategic bombers while pretending to mediate amid its own proxy war on Russia.
Question: Might this have been done with Trump outside the loop? In other words was it a deep state setup?
Even being reported in the West. We’re on the way. This could not have been achieved without the highest level of NATO assistance. Starlink needs to go; Trump needs to bail out while he can if he did not authorise it and Russia has to completely destroy Ukraine as a military and political unit and make hyper ballistic missile strikes on Western Europe and make the concept of a just revenge a fundamental part of Russian Military Doctrine.
This is a direct insult to the Russians and, I suspect, to Trump the day before negotiations were to begin. We now need to see the reaction from China and North Korea. Will they both join together with Russia which would provide them with the knowledge and operational skills to fight a modern drone and missile war? The Ukrainians and their accomplices have driven us right to the edge of the nuclear abyss in which the Russian’s best bet for a permanentt and secute peace is to use tactical nuclear weapons in the non-Russian parts of Ukraine to make it completley unihabitable
US denies awareness of the attack but Ukraine crimes we knew about it.
https://x.com/Alex_Oloyede2/status/1929204865890218027
Different attack (if it’s real). The airbases were scattered all over the place much further from Ukraine than this.
Ukraine is claiming 40, which is probably an overstatement.
But it’s certainly a coup for Ukraine’s special ops and another blunder by Russian defense planners. Russia continues to have a hard time with the asymmetrical threats out of Ukraine. For want of a $5 million shelter a $100 million plane was lost… many, many times over.
These old bomber fleets are arguably obsolescent but it’s a spectacularly expensive blow. And any loss to Russia’s utterly inadequate AWACS fleet is a disaster.
After some huffing and puffing I don’t expect much from Russia–more performatively timed strikes on regular military targets maybe. Maybe more meaningless “buffer zone” talk.
Then again, what realistic escalation options does Russia have? It’s not the US. It’s not going to cause civilian catastrophes, it’s not going to strike Ukraine’s Western managers, etc.
Putin’s mistake was to treat Ukraine like another Georgia 2008 operation. Only time will tell just how disastrous a blunder this was.
While maybe the Russians are underclaiming, 6 versus 40 is quite a difference.
A coup? A slight degradation of air power for what is likely lead to the end of any special consideration for the Ukraine, i.e. all transport objects are now valid targets and say goodbye to the electrical grid.
It’s like claiming that breaking your hand to make a small crack in a plate glass window was a wise idea…
We’ll see. Initial reports are that only 6 aircraft were actually damaged and the bulk of the attack was repelled.
‘Lord Bebo
@MyLordBebo
🇨🇳🇮🇳🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺 TRADE WAR: “500% tariff on India and China”
Graham: “The game that Putin’s been playing is about to change, he’s gonna be hit and hit hard by the US!”
Blumenthal: “500% tariffs on anybody who buys Putin’s oil, gas or petrochemicals! 500% tariff on India, on China!”’
Lyndsey Graham is the sort of guy who thinks that a flamethrower fight in a telephone booth is a good idea. If this ever happened, China would tell the Trump to shove it and and there would go all trade with the US. Same with India as too much of their wealth is coming from Russian oil. The US still imports a lot from Russia on the quiet so the US too would have to pay 500% tariffs. Then there are all the Global majority countries that depend on Russian imports like oil and fertilizer to, you know, not starve and you can add the EU to that list as well as they import a lot from Russia still but don’t admit to it. Of course Lyndsey Graham may be able to get this through the Senate with a majority-proof vote so that Trump could not veto it. Who knows? Maybe Trump thinks that this is a good idea because he thinks that finally he will have some leverage on Putin. I’d like to think that this was part of a bluff on Graham’s part but I think that he is actually serious.
The stupid are very often are incredibly serious indeed about any old nonsense.
Graham would think it’s a good idea so long as he wasn’t in the telephone booth.
EU members losing patience over Hungary’s restrictive rule of law trends European Interest
The fundamental values of the EU are enshrined in Article 2 TEU:
“The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”
Human dignity – Callous making emotive statements about Russia and Russians? The EU member states support of the Palestinian genocide? Yea. Right.
Freedom and democracy – the trumped up EU allegations against Marine Le Pen, the denial of the proven legitimacy of Georgescu’s election in Romania? Yea. Right.
Minority rights in the Baltic States? The right of minorities to live and vote as they wish? Externally imposing Pride parades on a culture in which there is no pride ban which may find the imposition of Brussels metrosexual values perverse and offensive? Yea. Right.
Pluralism in an international organisation which conflates Zionist genocide and Judaism, and all those Jews who disagree are guilty of hate speech and anti-semitism? And they criticise Hungary for attempting to regulate press standards. Yea. Right.
These few examples (and there are many more) merely indicate that the rule of law does not exist in the liberal totalitarian pretend state of the EU and its Ruritanian members with their political and economic élites in an intensifying struggle to maintain their power in a sea where the debt-ridden middle and working classes are are forced to swim, head above water as they are dragged down to the precariat by the weights chained to their feet. Yea. Right.
To be fair, Orbán is the most pro-Zionist European leader. Not surprisingly, he has never been condemned by Brussels for this stance.
re: VEO 3 and AI
(No particular link, just a general thought.)
Is there perhaps a silver lining? Are we moving to a world where we cannot trust our eyes, ears and anything digital published after today’s date? A world where anything digital from this day forward has no verifiable provenance, must be assumed to be inauthentic and likely AI generated?
Will we necessarily resort to a kind of default skepticism about the digital which is much needed but absent in today’s world? A world where only the real people in front of us are the truly verifiable?
Kind of like the world which existed before print?
I still use film for photography and harbor a hope that the difficulty of faking images using physical processes will result in a resurgence of the art.
Hey, a kid can dream.
Some good AI news perhaps? This could be just a one off, but Kaiser Permanente in the North West Region (USA), is giving up on their use of AI, at least according to a relative in a top administration position. I don’t have specifics but they had gone full bore into the technology and fired many workers, but it has been a disaster – again, according to my relative. Too many errors, too much cleaning up of processed records and too much added work for the remaining staff. So cross your fingers, if true.
I just experienced an incredible example of Israeli Hasbara and thought the commentariat would be interested in exactly how pervasive it is.
Today, in San Sebastian, Spain (where I live), there was a pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide protest. The local newspaper (El Diario Vasco) did a story, which was posted about three hours ago (https://www.diariovasco.com/san-sebastian/muertos-gaza-palestina-israel-alderdi-eder-20250601143533-nt.html). Within two hours there were 11 comments (in Spanish) to the article pushing the Israeli position. Using words like cynicism and claiming that only Hamas is responsible for what is happening in Gaza. Now, after three hours, there are 22 comments with all but a few along the same lines.
This is a small local paper. I have never seen this many comments to any article. The level of response to such an obscure article surprises even me.
That sort of massive commenting has been going on for years in social networks and is very effectively performed by bots marshalled in bot farms. Just let them loose on the Internet, scour for discussions of interest, and then overflow a message board / web page / social posting with automatically or semi-automatically generated drivel.
Actually, this has been going for more than 30 years. I personally witnessed what happened in Usenet message boards when the infamous Serdar Argic bot dumped tons of vituperations about the Armenian genocide (which it turned around as a genocide against Turks) as soon as it detected keywords such as “Armenia” or “Turkey” in any posting (independently from the context — Internet bots were already redoubtable and prolific but still primitive).
From the department of lol
Party Activists in California Aren’t Sold on a Harris Run for Governor
These are the Hampton’s crowd activists that think Harris is a genius political operator?
‘Harris Tweed’ certainly aint no Boss Tweed…
I don’t get it though, she’s an Alf Landon for our times-is that all the Donkey Show can come up with?
Apparently.
Interesting. Apparently, Zelensky has publicly announced that they will be sending a delegation to Istanbul.
One question is whether the Russians stick to their existing agenda (whatever that really was–they did keep their demands secret, after all.) or they’ll make changes at the last minute. One should think that the terms that Russia offers will be much harsher than whatever that was going to be…although it does make it seem quite wise that they kept their terms hidden–having made the terms public, then haing to change them at the last minute would seem unwise.
Re: AI and the Death of Literary Criticism
This is another one of those “death of the English Department” essays, penned by faculty of creative writing. It hits a number of the usual notes, e.g., deploring post-structuralism and “theory” in general, and does so with aplomb.
However, I find that the author, Thomas P. Balazs, over-eggs the case a bit, and starting from Mathew Arnold and the formation of the canon does readily make it sound like English departments deserve to be smote by AI.
At least, the last time I took a seminar in the study of literature, it wasn’t just listening to the proverbial old white guy in a creaky wooden chair, debating who should be in the canon, “who or what was the best work or the greatest author” or whether Blake or Dickens were worthy or great or not. English departments are exploring a lot more than that.
I’m not sure Balazs even really gets how LLMs work. He says:
The key term here is “analyze”. Balazs may have been fooled, but LLMs like ChatGPT do not “analyze” Hamlet and they never will. They regurgitate what thousands of other authors have already said about Hamlet. They were trained on models that include possibly hundreds of articles or even books on Hamlet (And the sourcing of these articles and books may have involved piracy and quite possibly copyright infringement; the jury is literally out on the latter, as at least one court case is in progress.)
LLMs are to knowledge what Chicken McNuggets are to food. They take an established corpus of human-generated knowledge, grind it up into a billion words of text, and then glue it all back together into something that resembles “knowledge” but is really not. It is a probabilistic response to a query, using a model — that’s all.
One of the things you typically learn as an undergraduate studying English is how to analyze literature, such that if presented with a new dramatic work X by heretofore unknown author Y, you can analyze it. If I ask a LLM application to “analyze” X by Y, it cannot, simply because X and Y are not in its training data.
The last part of Balazs’ essay is a demonstration that LLMs are rather good at impersonating the prose of a specific writer (he uses his own writing as an example), and fail to detect that it wasn’t written by a human. As he says, indeed, “the algorithms are getting better at writing convincingly human-sounding prose by the day”. From here, he notes the usual old skool solution of “requiring students to handwrite essays in class” but extrapolates to a day “when the AI chip is implanted behind their eyeballs” and concludes that English departments might as well just throw in the towel now.
What this arms-race-with-AI view misses, I feel, is something more fundamental. After all, what is the point of enrolling in a college Humanities program like English and then using LLMs to cheat your way through? At the end of four years, the cheating student may get their B.A., they may get their coveted corporate job, but they won’t have learned any ability to think critically — all of that was outsourced to some app.
Any students who do this have decided that college is nothing more than the degree as a ticket to some future job. In effect, they have declared to all future employers that they themselves have nothing to offer beyond what LLMs apps can do. Ergo, there is no reason to hire and employ them in any capacity beyond data entry.
This has been discussed previously here in the NC forum, and I don’t see that the equation has really changed much. As @ChrisFromGA recently put it: “Anyone who relies on AI to cheat to their own detriment will become part of the faceless, nameless body of AI slop.”
People believe that the IT technology is changing at some dizzying pace, but in fact there has been remarkably little progress in the field of AI since its inception at the end of the 1950s.
As a former English major, I have to pipe up and say that there is no “point of enrolling in a college Humanities program like English.” Even 25-40 years ago when I was enduring my extended undergraduacy, English programs had given up everything useful such as logic, rhetoric, communications theory (R.I.P. I.A. Richards) and were just retailing and boosting whatever the fashionable fiction list was (plus a smidgen of poetry if you can find it).
Maybe they can teach a little bit of glibness here and there, but where’s the market for that (and Twitter is a better teacher of glibness anyway)?
That doesn’t make me a fan of AI, but given how everything has descended into useless bullshit it’s not hard to see why people who don’t care would find AI useful for generating at least a defensive level of counter bullshit.