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Links 7/1/2025

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‘I was shocked’: Melbourne man’s ‘unbelievable’ find after buying house SBS (Paul R)

How Japan escaped Obesity while America got Fat YouTube (Micael T)

Stem cells from extracted wisdom teeth are like “medical gold,” able to treat multiple diseases Earth.com (Paul R)

UK Scientists Plan to Construct Synthetic Human Genetic Material From Scratch Guardian

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Climate/Environment

Earth is Trapping Much More Heat Than Climate Models Forecast The Conversation

Arctic Sea Ice reaches a Historic Low for late June, with Winter Impacts expected if the Weather Pattern persists Severe Weather

Mediterranean Sea poised to break all-time heat records Fox Weather

Atlantic cold spot shows AMOC has ‘been slowing for a century Oceanographic Magazine

The bold plan to save a vital ocean current with giant parachutes New Scientist

Tajikistan and Central Asia Face Escalating Water Crisis Times of Central Asia

Google’s emissions up 51% as AI electricity demand derails efforts to go green Guardian

China?

Exclusive: Trump Orders Military to “Deter” China Ken Klippenstein

Video teases new Chinese blackout bomb that can knock out enemy power stations South China Morning Post

India-Pakistan

India rejects ‘illegal’ Indus arbitration, suspends treaty over terror links New Indian Express

Suicide attack kills 16 soldiers in northwest Pakistan Daily Sabah

The Koreas

Red flag on nuclear wastewater Korea Times. North accused of dumping.

Thailand

Could Cambodia hit the Thai capital with its made-in-China weapons? South China Morning Post.

Thai court suspends PM Paetongtarn from duty pending case seeking her dismissal Channel News Asia

South of the Border

Argentina must turn over 51% stake in YPF, US judge rules Buenos Aires Times (Kevin W)

Colombia’s former foreign minister sought US support for coup plot: audio and witnesses Colombia News. This news, first reported by El País, comes just two and a half weeks after Nick warned of a possible soft coup being planned in Colombia: Is A Soft Coup Brewing in Colombia, the US’ Long-Time “Israel of Latin America”

Africa

DR Congo-Rwanda peace deal met with scepticism in rebel-held city BBC

Togo groups say recent protests left 7 dead France24

Starving Sudanese people eating weeds to survive amid brutal war Independent

European Disunion

Europe needs a Metternich Unherd

Old Blighty

Britain is racing towards a fresh cost-of-living crisis Spectator

Britain in 2025: sick man of Europe battling untreated illness crisis Guardian (Kevin W). Important and troubling.

Chris Marsden: New head of Britain’s MI6 is granddaughter of Ukrainian Nazi mass murderer Olivier Boyd-Barrett

Israel v. Iran

Iran’s nuclear enrichment ‘will never stop’, nation’s UN ambassador says Guardian

Iran demands security guarantee before resuming nuclear talks with US Anadolu Agency. IMHO, Iran has independently decided to take the same path as Russia in negotiations with the US: play it straight and let it become evident that the other side is the impossible one. They already knew there was no overlap in bargaining positions before the scheduled meeting that wound up being cancelled due to the June 13 attacks.

* * *

Israel Called Its Initial Attack on Iran ‘Red Wedding,’ Referring to a Fictional Massacre that Relied on Deception Antiwar.com (Kevin W). OMG….the House of Frey, which perpetrated the Red Wedding slaughter, was later wiped out by Arya Stark. Do they realize what they are invoking?

Since it was the Israelis themselves that made this comparison, please bear with me in running this sequence, which appeared initially in two different Game of Throne episodes. For those who don’t know the series, it was the Freys who slaughtered the scion of House Stark as well as other Starks in the Red Wedding. Arya Stark was busy at the time, training to be an assassin, and you can see her skills here:

NYT – Guessing About Iran With ‘Experts’ Who Lack Knowledge Of It Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)

Palantir’s Shadow War On Iran Kit Klarenberg

Israel v. the Rest of the Resistance

Divided over Gaza: the Israeli soldiers who fight on and those who refuse The Times

Lebanon pressured to approve Hezbollah disarmament in cabinet, sources in Beirut claim The National

New Not-So-Cold War

Russian Forces Close in on Capital of Ukraine’s Sumy Region: Elite Units Redeployed to Stem Advances Military Watch

The Outcome Of Armenia’s Latest Round Of Unrest Will Be Pivotal For The Region’s Future Andrew Korybko

RUSSIA SAVES FACE — THE BOTOX REVOLUTION John Helmer. IM Doc says Botox produces very good results…until it doesn’t. But patients keep using it, and if they don’t stop, it leads to very bad outcomes.

Syraqistan

Trump signs an executive order ending US sanctions on Syria Arab News

Syria’s wheat war: drought fuels food crisis for 16 million Al-Monitor

Imperial Collapse Watch

Trump 2.0

The Senate megabill is on a collision course with House fiscal hawks Politico

Who wins, who loses if Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ passes? Aljazeera (resilc)

Harvard Violated Students’ Civil Rights, Trump Administration Finds Wall Street Journal

Trump attacks Fed again in open letter calling for lower rates Axios. Kevin W: “Check out image.”

Trump says Musk would ‘head back to South Africa’ without US subsidies for EVs Anadolu Agency

Tariffs

Trump’s tariff war and aid cuts threaten poorest nations’ recovery Financial Times. As we’ve reminded readers, Jomo warned of crisis risk in developing economies for more than a year before the Trump tariffs.

European ports ‘overflowing’ as Trump tariffs cause congestion Financial Times

The Supremes

A New Kind of Judicial Supremacy Steve Vladek

GOP Clown Car

Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations ProPublica

Democrat Death Wish

The Elephant in the Room Policy Tensor. albrt:

This is a fascinatingly direct and cogent analysis, except that in Part III the word “Democrats” needs to be replaced with “whatever organization succeeds the Democrats” because the WHOLE point of the current Democratic party is to disintermediate from the working class to enable more siphoning of big donor money to pay for little Madison’s violin lessons.

Three Messages Democrats Should Bring to Rural America Jess Piper (Chuck L)

Our No Longer Free Press

The Art Of The Gaslight Mark Wauck

Mr. Market is Moody

Economic fragmentation raises risk of global financial panic, BIS warns The Times. If you read this recap carefully (and I have been remiss due to competing duties and have not yet read the underlying BIS report) the big systemic risk issue is not government debt levels per se but the astonishingly stoopid hedgie basis trade (tantamount to picking up pennies before a steamroller) going pear shaped as it did when Trump announced his Liberation Day tariffs. Recall that tons of quant-y global macro funds died during the crisis, a testament to Taleb’s big point that tails are fat and even tweaked models can’t adequately allow for that (there are so few data points in the tail that it’s not possible to estimate tail risk with any precision; if you get it right, it was dumb luck). However, as more and more investors get nervous about government debt (whether on an informed or naive basis, or as with Liberation Day, in reaction to new events), it can (likely will) again force rapid unwinds of the basis trade, which can in turn trigger more disruption.

This may seem as if the BIS is driving with a rear view mirror. However, the BIS was way way ahead of other central banks and nearly all economists in warning of the destabilizing potential of housing bubbles in quite a few major economies starting ~2003. In addition, recall there were four acute phases of the global financial crisis, starting in June 2007. The same underlying dynamic got worse and worse as authorities kept applying mere band-aids. And there is also tons of official resistance to hearing BIS warnings.

AI

Make Fun Of Them Ed Zitron. Epic. Delicious. A must read.

Has an AI Backlash Begun? Wired. One can only hope.

Ex-Meta engineers have built an AI tool to plan every detail of your trip TechCrunch. Kevin W: “Hallucinated flights and flight connections anyone?”

CEOs Are Quietly Telling Us the Truth: AI Is Replacing You Gizmodo (Dr. Kevin)

The Bezzle

That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose Atlantic

Driver fury as Hertz’s new Orwellian scanners trigger instant $400 fines for barely visible scuffs Daily Mail (resilc)

Guillotine Watch

Lauren Sánchez Bezos Commits to the Corset New York Times. Billionaires (and Lauren Sanchez Bezos now is one unless Jeff imposed a super stingy prenup on her) falling in line with Trump’s love of the 18th century. Admittedly, some actresses and performers like Cher have been rumored to have ribs removed to make their waists smaller. But Cher in particular had some costumes that looked like corsets.

PG&E is hiring an executive bodyguard. Combat shooting experience required CalMatters. Paul R: “Makes sense. They are an electrical and gas utility. They don’t do water and they don’t want any damn plumbers coming after them.”

Class Warfare

https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/30/israel-called-its-initial-attack-on-iran-red-wedding-referring-to-a-fictional-massacre-that-relied-on-deception/

Costco Membership. Paul R: “Costco enshittifies. You now need the more expensive membership to get in at 9am. Plebs have to wait 1/2 hour or 1 hour depending”. Moi: I recall that they let old people in early during Covid.

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (Chuck L). Oopsie!

A second bonus:

And a third (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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67 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Nature is Amazing ☘️
    @AMAZlNGNATURE
    Humpback Whale breaches and lands on fishing boat 😱’

    They needed a bigger boat.

    Reply ↓
    2. Eric Anderson

      I almost had that happen while commercial fishing in SE Alaska. An absolute giant humpback breached parallel to the Seiner not more than 10 yards off starboard as we left the Kupreanof Strait to head into Frederick Sound.

      I was on the deck at the time. Rolled the boat to about a 30º angle and if I hadn’t fallen down I’d have gone overboard. Soaked me through. But the most impressive thing was the sound it made. The !!POP!! sound when that much beast hits a perfectly flat belly flop on the water is like a gunshot going off next to your head.

      That experience will always be seared in technicolor on my brain.

      Reply ↓
  2. Wukchumni

    Kristi Noem Secretly Took a Cut of Political Donations ProPublica
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I’ve got you in on the skim
    I’ve got you, deep in the heart of me
    So deep in my heart that you’re really a part of me
    I’ve got you in on the skim

    I’d tried so, not to give in
    I said to myself this political donation affair never will go so well
    But why should I try to resist when baby I know so well
    I’ve got you in on the skim

    I’d sacrifice anything come what might
    For the sake of having you near
    In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
    And repeats, repeats in my ear

    Don’t you know, little fool
    You never can win
    Use your mentality
    Wake up to reality
    But each time that I do just the thought of you
    Makes me stop before I begin
    ‘Cause I’ve got you in on the skim

    I would sacrifice anything come what might
    For the sake of having you near
    In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
    And repeats how it yells in my ear

    Don’t you know, little fool
    You never can win
    Why not use your mentality
    Step up, wake up to reality
    But each time I do just the thought of you
    Makes me stop just before I begin
    ‘Cause I’ve got you in on the skim
    Yes, I’ve got you in on the skim

    I’ve Got You Under my Skin, performed by Frank Sinatra

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1AHec7sfZ8

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      My salutations good sir. She obviously needed that $80,000 to pay for that gold Rolex of hers. /sarc

      Reply ↓
      1. Wukchumni

        We need a good slang word. I propose anybody wearing a spendy watch get hit with this or a variation of:

        Did you see Kristi, that bee-yacht’ch ‘Got Clocked’ flashing her Daytona in El Salvador as a courtesy to American exports perhaps wanting to know the time of day.

        No wonder a perp made off with her purse not long after…

        Situational awareness is not her long suit

        Reply ↓
          1. nycTerrierist

            I’ll never forget this horrible anecdote from when she was promoting her ‘memoir’:
            she shot her own young dog (instead of training it), and said this was a ‘brave choice’

            When she gloated about this in interviews, not one ‘journalist’ challenged her

            Reply ↓
            1. The Rev Kev

              ‘By their actions ye shall judge them.’

              Doubly so for those journalists-slash-stenographers.

              Reply ↓
            2. Wukchumni

              If you work for the man and speak truth to power, little Anthony Fremont all grown up now will whisk you into the scorned field, you’ll never work in journalism again! {rubs hands together-victory via vendetta}

              Reply ↓
    2. ChrisFromGA

      Embezzlement Barbie – accessories include stylish orange jumpsuit, tennis shoes (shoelaces not included.)

      Reply ↓
  3. IM Doc

    With regard to the AI Make fun of them article……

    As a teacher, I can tell in seconds in writing and within a bit longer in oral presentation if the student is pasting or quoting AI. The AI grammar and syntax are that obvious. However, it is getting better and better all the time. It is getting harder to tell until you start questioning the presenter. They often melt like butter on a hot sidewalk. It is increasingly concerning to compare academic output of write ups or presentation with the actual knowledge of the student.

    And it goes back to the make fun aspect. I am really looking for a very derisive insulting term to nail these students with. I am just not in the mood to tolerate this kind of imbecile intellectual laziness from my students when lives will soon depend on them.

    BE A DOCTOR, NOT AN x……..Justine Bateman, the actress and director in Hollywood, has found herself immersed in AI plagiarism and inanity. She has recommended the use of “prompter” to belittle these people but I do not think it is harsh enough. BE A DOCTOR NOT A PROMPTER is likely not going to get their attention.

    Anyone out there have another idea? It is obvious from the article that Sam Altman has done a bit too much AI. The vapid dialog is a dead giveaway.

    I grieve for my kids.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Just tell ’em ‘Sorry, son. Make it till you fake it doesn’t work for being a doctor. If you can’t do your job, then move aside for somebody that can.’

      Reply ↓
    3. Terry Flynn

      With ya IM Doc. My distribution of attendee evaluation scores to our executive education courses was very bimodal. The top peak was way above my academic peers because I always had in mind 3 ways to explain the often very alien concepts underlying “how people are assumed to make choices” in our paradigm, initiated in math psych but also tested and found to be good for almost 100 years.

      I had a second mode at 1 star level. These were all the neoclassical economists. I got so fed up of one spoiling the course for people who individually or using a limited research budget, had shelled out thousands. Told her “you knew the paradigm we work in before signing up. If you don’t like it, might I suggest a course given in Chicago?” People laughed. She STFU. And then gave me 1 star. My bosses always threw away the 1 star reviews once they looked at the backgrounds of the people who awarded me that.

      Reply ↓
    6. ChrisFromGA

      How about “poseur?”

      Back in the day when I used to play guitar in bands, that was the ultimate insult. As in, “he’s not really able to play his instrument – he just puts on a lot of leather and has long hair to look like a musician.”

      That’s what crap-stain AI from Scam Altman is doing to people – turning them into poseurs with no skill, knowledge, or ability to think.

      Reply ↓
    7. earthling

      Sounds like oral exams are going to have to make a comeback. Huge time sink, but what other way to see what’s actually sunk into each one’s cranium?

      Meanwhile, if doctor training is still putting people through death-march excessive hours, no surprise if the students feel forced to cut corners and get whatever ‘help’ they can. So the overloaded schedules need to change, too.

      Reply ↓
  4. Henry Moon Pie

    Earth trapping more heat–

    So how hot will it have to get to shut up buffoons like Dore and Rogan?

    This is the latest game being played. They show the graph of Earth’s temperature going back 485 million years. At the scale that can be displayed on a web page, it appears that our planet’s temperature is plunging rapidly. This graph or a very similar one is what Rogan threw up in front of Bernie who didn’t know how to counter it.

    Back 485 million years ago, there were plenty of trilobites around, but it would be more than 200 million years before dinosaurs and mammals appeared. So while that very long range chart is interesting to evolutionary biologists and paleontologists, it does more to hide the truth about our situation than convey it.

    Let’s look at a chart that covers the last million years. There were no homo sapiens around at the beginning of that period, but homo erectus was. At this scale, it’s obvious how misleading that 485 million year chart was. The amount of temperature fluctuation has greatly decreased from nearly 25 degrees C in the 485 chart to 12 degrees C in the million year chart, and all the data clusters around a point not so far from present conditions.

    Finally, let’s look at the most relevant chart, the one that focuses in on the period when humanity began to build human civilization. The temperature chart for the Holocene goes back just 12,000 years, just before humans began to practice agriculture and build a civilization. The temperature fluctuation has shrunk to little more than 1 degree C after the end of the last Ice Age. Earth’s temperature going back to that 485 million year span has been like a guitar string that is plucked and its amplitude decreases until it’s at rest. It’s those very stable conditions that have allowed humans to become sedentary, farm, build towns and cities and develop technology.

    But we have been messing with the primary forces of Nature with our carbon spewing, tree cutting, desertifying habits. This is the chart for the industrial period. This exponential rise in temperature has brought us to the warmest Earth in 100,000 years, well outside that stable Holocene climate that gently gave birth to human civilization.

    So, no, the Earth is not cooling despite that misleading appearance of that 485 million year chart. And yes, as the article about heat in/heat out points out, the pace of this heating will be increasing substantially in the future.

    It’s too bad there’s no hell. Fools like Dore and Rogan might like it there.

    Reply ↓
    1. MicaT

      Well done.

      If it was only dore and Rogan, but they are just 2 of way too many in this country and others too.
      The number of podcasts and blogs, YouTube channels, Substack posts that continue to say solar and wind don’t work just contribute to that narrative and that’s just one aspect of many in the anti climate change movement

      The only positive takeaway I can use is that China is providing the way in renewables and clean tech for the world. The US never has. And while the US going backwards is going to hurt the planet, the rest of the world is going forwards with renewables.
      Last month, well May anyway China installed over 90 billion watts of new solar. To put that in perspective the US installed about 40 last year. China now has over a trillion watts of solar installed and working, the US is a fraction of that. They have 30 reactors under construction and more coming.
      Staggering, their fossil fuel use is dropping in real time and it’s projected they have actually reached peak FF. Some good news

      Reply ↓
  5. Wukchumni

    Exclusive: Trump Orders Military to “Deter” China Ken Klippenstein
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    ‘I’m calling it the Moo Goo Gai Plan {signs sharpie signature with such a flourish that it resembles a 8.4 on the Richter Scale} in order to stir-fry things up. Most if not all of our navy is assisting Israel in some fashion, but if you look on the map, China isn’t that far take away.hmmmmm This is making me hungry, would somebody go to Panda Express and get me half fried rice and half chow mein with broccoli beef and kung pao chicken, and mark on the outside bag that it’s for Tulsi.’

    Reply ↓
    1. ilsm

      I wonder if Fiona Hill and Annie Appelbaum are advising the Fox news guy and the formerly retired air national guard F-16 pilot.

      If any of them can define deter?

      Reply ↓
  7. The Rev Kev

    ‘Thomas Keith
    @iwasnevrhere_
    Dozens of Israeli drones, worth hundreds of millions, vanished into Iranian airspace. A senior Israeli official told Yedioth Ahronoth they simply “disappeared.”
    Now, Israel’s own finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich has frozen military procurement. Ynet reports a total freeze on new purchases, including rocket launchers and replacement stockpiles. Citing a rift with the army and accusations of “wasting mobilisation days.” The $16.2 billion emergency request is blocked, war debts are piling, and the state can’t pay for the myths it’s losing.’

    Why should Israel put its hand into its own pocket when Uncle Sucker will give them all the military equipment that they need for free? The US State Department has already approved a $510 million emergency transfer of JDAM bomb guidance kits to Israel and during the Israel-Iran war guess which country was doing all the aerial refueling of all of Israel’s aircraft for free? And right now there is a stream of military equipment going to Israel from the US military and I doubt that they have to pay for any of it. And why not? Not only does Trump approve of it but it is bipartisan.

    Reply ↓
  8. lyman alpha blob

    RE: Driver fury as Hertz’s new Orwellian scanners trigger instant $400 fines for barely visible scuffs

    We recently brought back a rental car and they found a tiny ding in the windshield that was almost invisible, but they were going to charge us for it anyway since it hadn’t been noted as existing in the pre-rental inspection. I was annoyed at possibly being charged for something the rental company wasn’t likely to even bother replacing, but the attendant was nice enough to check the inspections of the vehicle prior to our rental, and did find the same minor ding listed on one of the earlier ones, so we were off the hook for any damages. That might work in situations like this – according to the article though part of the problem was the inability to speak with an actual human being.

    Reply ↓
  9. ilsm

    Smotrich must be using the NY Times’ experts as advisors.

    Israel exists bc the US military is committed to its existence! If Hizbollah comes out and the IDF gets in trouble the US’ airpower will do what it did for Israel in 1973. In 1973 the IDF was “on the ropes”. Massive airlift of the US” most advanced guided (just “tested” in South Vietnam) air to ground munitions and other support turned the tide for the IDF.

    June 2025 was much the same only this time US forces engaged and intercepted drones and missiles for IDF.

    Of course, Smotrich can dictate to Sunni royals whose undemocratic position depends on the US.

    Smotrich has not put US in same category as the Emirs?

    Reply ↓
  10. ciroc

    >Trump says Musk would ‘head back to South Africa’ without US subsidies for EVs

    “No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!” Trump added in his post, also taking aim at Musk’s lucrative SpaceX contracts with the US government.

    I agree, but I don’t believe any president has the authority to decide whether or not the U.S. should withdraw from the space program.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      Maybe they can go back to asking the Russians to once more take US astronauts up into space. They didn’t charge that much. Don’t know if they will agree to doing so for members of the US Space Force though.

      Reply ↓
      1. tegnost

        I have an idea! Maybe we could bypass the greedy little weasel musk and his weasel partner in gov grifting bezos and make a public sort of corporation like thing but gov administered and we could call it something like, I don’t know, National Aeronautics and Space Administration? Sounds neat, right? and as a bonus it has a neat acronym and you know we all love acronyms
        NASA…we could save hundreds of billions of dollars if we doged those minions of cthulu. Another great idea i have is every time an amazon truck enters usps property there will be an fee of $100 per minute on said premises to offset the cost of bezos dumping his expensive package deliveries on the collective “we”.

        Reply ↓
  11. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Yves.

    Further to the link about the grandfather of the new head of MI6 and exchanges with Revenant, who has spook connections, may I repeat what I e-mailed you on Saturday evening:

    Disquiet has emerged in Whitehall about the influence of Israel and its proxies over the selection of Blaise Metreweli (or Dobrovolska or Borkovska) ahead of three more senior spooks with field experience and Barbara Woodward, ambassador to the UN and China expert.

    Revenant may be aware as he has a retired spook relative. This relative is aware of how former spooks helped the Blair family hide their investments, income and tentacles.

    Before readers go further, please search for Al Mayadeen, David Miller, Zionism and the civil service. The link prevents messages and comments getting through.

    Tamara Finkelstein was one of the quartet shortlisted to be head of the civil service a few months ago. She did not get the top job.

    There’s similar in politics, the media and academia. Former Green MP Caroline Lucas formed part of the witch hunt to have David Miller fired from Bristol university. Richard Murphy was similarly targeted at Sheffield. It was agreed that Richard retire quietly last spring. A group of Jewish employees had been gunning for Gary Lineker’s dismissal from the BBC since last year.

    It turns out that Foreign Secretary David Lammy was recruited by Labour Friends of Israel as an undergraduate at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Soon after being elected as a municipal councillor in north London, he gave a big hint that his masters at Harvard and introduction to his wife, Nicola Green, were facilitated by the LFI. It also turns out that five new and young Scottish Labour MPs are similarly sponsored.

    Most of Labour’s money comes from Jewish oligarchs. The party has fewer than 200k members, a third of what Corbyn assembled.

    These oligarchs include Gary Lubner, a South African. He started working life as a policeman in apartheid South Africa and became a sanctions buster, teaming up with the brother of Labour politician Margaret Hodge, another Zionist.

    Lubner’s son is a Labour Party official.

    Lubner sponsored Labour MP Imogen Walker. She’s the wife of Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff at No 10. Both spent time at kibbutzim in their twenties, not together. McSweeney, who hails from Cork and a Fine Gael family, teamed up with Mandelson upon his return from the kibbutz.

    It seems red army captain Dobrovolski, of Polish origin, was captured at Kharkov.

    Metreweli, a Georgian, is his widow’s second husband.

    Borkovski is the mother of the spook’s father. The spook’s father has used Borkovski and Metreweli professionally, the latter latterly.

    Reply ↓
  12. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Yves.

    Further to the link about the grandfather of the new head of MI6 and exchanges with Revenant, who has spook connections, may I repeat what I e-mailed you on Saturday evening:

    Disquiet has emerged in Whitehall about the influence of Israel and its proxies over the selection of Blaise Metreweli (or Dobrovolska or Borkovska) ahead of three more senior spooks with field experience and Barbara Woodward, ambassador to the UN and China expert.

    Revenant may be aware as he has a retired spook relative. This relative is aware of how former spooks helped the Blair family hide their investments, income and tentacles.

    Before readers go further, please search for Al Mayadeen, David Miller, Zionism and the civil service. The link prevents messages and comments getting through.

    Tamara Finkelstein was one of the quartet shortlisted to be head of the civil service a few months ago. She did not get the top job.

    There’s similar in politics, the media and academia. Former Green MP Caroline Lucas formed part of the witch hunt to have David Miller fired from Bristol university. Richard Murphy was similarly targeted at Sheffield. It was agreed that Richard retire quietly last spring. A group of Jewish employees had been gunning for Gary Lineker’s dismissal from the BBC since last year.

    It turns out that Foreign Secretary David Lammy was recruited by Labour Friends of Israel as an undergraduate at London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies. Soon after being elected as a municipal councillor in north London, he gave a big hint that his masters at Harvard and introduction to his wife, Nicola Green, were facilitated by the LFI. It also turns out that five new and young Scottish women Labour MPs are similarly sponsored.

    Most of Labour’s money comes from Jewish oligarchs. The party has fewer than 200k members, a third of what Corbyn assembled.

    These oligarchs include Gary Lubner, a South African. He started working life as a policeman in apartheid South Africa and became a sanctions buster, teaming up with the brother of Labour politician Margaret Hodge, another Zionist and sanctions buster.

    Lubner’s son is a Labour Party official.

    Lubner sponsored Labour MP Imogen Walker. She’s the wife of Morgan McSweeney, chief of staff at No 10. Both spent time at kibbutzim in their twenties, not together. McSweeney, who hails from Cork and a Fine Gael family, teamed up with Mandelson upon his return from the kibbutz.

    It seems red army captain Dobrovolski, of Polish origin, was captured at Kharkov and teamed up with the British in Vienna, not Italy, after the war. Others in that group of Nazi collaborators were sent to Canada.

    Metreweli, a Georgian, is his widow’s second husband.

    Borkovski is the mother of the spook’s father. The spook’s father has used Borkovski and Metreweli professionally, the latter latterly.

    Reply ↓
    2. The Rev Kev

      Thank you, Colonel. It looks like the intent is to eventually have every British politician to have an Israeli-orientated “minder” like has happened with the Republicans in the US. They fund any candidate that loves themselves some Israel and slander any politician that doesn’t – like they did for Corbyn. Dissent will be cracked down on as time goes by. But with this Israeli influence, it may serve to undermine the UK. They already jumped this woman with a dodgy past over the heads of several professionals which makes her a political choice. And with her past, I would expect her to target Russia as if her life depended on it which may lead to her giving the go-ahead for some dubious schemes.

      Reply ↓
  13. ChrisFromGA

    So, how is “Swamp Stooge” Mike Johnson going to keep his promise to allow 72 hours before voting on any bill that comes out of the Senate, with July 4th holiday now less than 72 hours away, and the Senate still voting on amendments?

    Oh yeah, I forgot, that is just another worthless promise that will be trampled underfoot by the stampeding fiscal clowns known as the GOP.

    Reply ↓
  14. Henry Moon Pie

    Zitron’s ridiculing AI “giants”–

    Amen. And Zitron doesn’t mention Thiel, whose interview by Ross Douthat is hot on Youtube right now, mostly because Douthat asked Thiel if he was the antichrist. Thiel’s mumbling and bumbling may help disguise the fact that he can’t string together a coherent paragraph of thought. His use of the Bible shows either a deep ignorance of its contents or a shameless willingness to distort and manipulate to derive support for his own insane beliefs.

    These people are just pitchmen for projects that claim to be cures for cancer level advances when they’re nothing more than surveillance and manipulation tools or just outright frauds.

    The boys at Due Dissidence have a little fun with the Douthat/Thiel interview.

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    1. Kurtismayfield

      AI will be great at creating a level of flappers between the powers that be and the hoi polloi. The goal is for business and all that can pay for it is to never to be bothered by a human being again. The only relationship thay tgey want is to extract their noney.

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  15. Siloman

    Re AI – AI could more properly be called DI – Derivative Intelligence (and yes artificial as well) – in the same way that there are derivatives of securities. Parsed, repackaged and resold pieces of an original asset posing as a “new” investment opportunity, created solely for the purposed making money without actually creating anything new. Underlying it all is the original asset. In the case of AI/DI, the underlying asset is human intelligence. The derivative is not any better than that.

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    2. Mikel

      Indeed. Much of this is fintech bros’ ideas about tech – from the PayPal Mafia to the CoreWeave paper (or digits) shuffle.

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  16. The Rev Kev

    “Iran demands security guarantee before resuming nuclear talks with US”

    Well that’s not going to happen.In fact, Trump is so mad at the Iranians for not being defeated that he is refusing to talk to them-

    ‘Tell phony Democrat Senator Chris Coons that I am not offering Iran ANYTHING, unlike Obama, who paid them $Billions under the stupid ‘road to a Nuclear Weapon JCPOA (which would now be expired!), nor am I even talking to them since we totally OBLITERATED their Nuclear Facilities’

    https://news.antiwar.com/2025/06/30/trump-says-hes-not-offering-iran-anything/

    So it’s a race right now. One between Israel to be re-armed and for Iran to revamp their defenses with the help of the Russians and the Chinese. My money is on Iran finishing first for a simple reason. Missiles. Israel is going to need thousands and thousands of missiles to defend themselves against Iranian drones and ballistic missiles. But with worldwide production of Patriot battery missiles being only about 660 per year, it will take the US years and years to re-supply Israel alone and that is not forgetting themselves and places like the Ukraine. I suspect other missiles like THAAD battery missiles will be having similar problems.

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  17. Adam1

    “That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was On Purpose”

    In 2021 my dad died and I was administering his estate. My dad owed back taxes to the IRS and once I had all of his assets available I needed to contact the IRS to get a pay-off amount and organize an electronic payment. It literally took about 5 minutes of pushing buttons and listening to que options to get where I needed to be. The crazy part was that for several months I’d go through these hoops and instead of getting a person I’d get a message that said they were too busy and couldn’t answer my call; and then the call would be disconnected. The first time I got this message I almost had a stroke.

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  18. ChrisFromGA

    One small bit of good news … the Senate just amended the BBPoS to remove the AI regulation moratorium:

    Tech Lords smacked down

    At least states will be free to pass laws restricting AI grifters, tools, and con artists. Too bad they won’t just get rid of the entire bill.

    Something unrelated but telling happened with another amendment. It would have taxed the super-rich to pay for a hospital fund to help rural hospitals. It got 18 GOP votes, but somehow didn’t pass?

    That means that the Democrats were so spiteful that they voted against taxing the super rich, probably because they figure strategically it increases the chance that the whole thing collapses.

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  19. ciroc

    >PG&E is hiring an executive bodyguard. Combat shooting experience required

    Protecting executives isn’t just about their personal safety, Kucera said. It’s also about protecting the company’s value. UnitedHealthcare lost about $63 billion in value after its CEO was killed. PG&E’s recent listing notes that its executive protection department “plays a critical role” in not only securing its leadership but “maintaining business continuity.”

    Would anyone be interested in investing in a company whose CEO fears being killed by its customers?

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  20. The Rev Kev

    With the ‘Red Wedding, this is not the first time that Game of Thrones has been used with Iran. Some people may remember the poster that Trump came up with in his first term as President where it says ‘Sanctions Are Coming’ in a Game of Thrones-style script-

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-03/hbo-rankles-at-trump-use-of-game-of-thrones-meme/10462836

    As Trump makes everything personal as President instead of professional and calculated, then maybe Iran can send a message to Trump the next time he thinks of attacking Iran. They could say-

    ‘Tell Trump that Iran remembers. Tell him that Winter will come for House Trump.’

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  22. The Rev Kev

    “Europe needs a Metternich ”

    ‘The greatest diplomats of all time were a Frenchman and an Austrian. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was a master of political opportunism, rivalled only by his Habsburg counterpart, Klemens von Metternich.’

    They were giants in their day. And now Europe has Kaja Kallas. Jesus wept.

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  23. Jake Dickens

    Sam Altman. I just watched a YouTube video interview of Karen Hao about her book about AI, the AI industry and Altman. She is very bright, has worked in Silicon Valley, seems to know the players and sees Altman as very capable and plugged-in with the people who develop AI. The opposite of Zitron’s view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8enXRDlWguU&t=1s

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  24. lyman alpha blob

    RE: Ed Zitron’s latest

    At my place of employment, we recently received a missive from upper management about AI, and the gist was that we were going to use it, not really sure why exactly but it will somehow lead to moar groaf, so please feel free to think up some good reasons and forward them along. I’d love to send Zitron’s piece (although I like being employed a little more, so won’t), especially this tidbit which rings true like a thousand Notre Dames bonging on all at once –

    “…the reason the powerful sound like idiots is because, well, they’re idiots. They sound like Business Idiots and create products to sell to Business Idiots, because Business Idiots run most companies and buy solutions based on what the last Business Idiot told them.”

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  25. Carolinian

    Re Art of the Gaslight

    What the Russians fear is that Trump can be mousetrapped into a nuclear first strike against Russia or some other country that will require a Russian nuclear response—their fear is an existential fear.

    That’s quite a bit of mindreading there. On might even suggest that the article itself is gaslighting. I on the other hand agree with those who say Trump is a reluctant warrior who doesn’t mind puffing out his chest from time to time but has little interest in obliterating everything including himself. And while Putin may or may not secretly despise Trump he gets this. Trump is indeed a weak character but not so weak as to casually start WW3. Most of the schemes people are talking about–the Russian bomber attack, the Iranian attack–were hatched pre Trump by the true crazies in the Biden admin. They after all blew up Nordstream and Biden openly wished for the death of Putin.

    Trump on the other hand lives in a Fox News reality show world. As long as his ego is being massaged obliteration is optional.

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  26. stefan

    In the past 24 hours, Trump has threatened Elon Musk, Thomas Massie, Japan, a judge in Israel, the CEO of AT&T, Jerome Powell, Canada, Thom Tillis, a Forbes reporter, Harvard, & migrants with being eaten by Burmese pythons in the Everglades, while releasing a new line of colognes.

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    2. ChrisFromGA

      Perhaps if he threatens enough of the population, we can all get temporary restraining orders on him. Limiting him to White House arrest.

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  27. Mikel

    Israel v. the Rest of the Resistance

    “Resistance” in Gaza? At this point that’s like calling the starvation a hunger strike.

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  28. Mikel

    Costco Membership. Paul R: “Costco enshittifies.”

    Because apparently nothing can be enjoyed unless other people’s discomfort (or on the more extreme end – suffering) can be made visible.

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  29. Tom Stone

    An indication of how bad it will get is the total lack of consequences when Kristi Noem had her thugs rough up the chair of the Senate Judiciary committee.
    The Senate Judiciary committee has the responsibility for oversight of DHS, Alex Padilla is Kristin Noem’s boss , legally.
    Her response when asked about the incident was “He didn’t identify himself”, which was a lie, and it beggars belief that she didn’t know who he was.
    No consequences for her or her thugs, very serious consequences for the rest of us.

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