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To Hide From Predators, Some Animals Camouflage Into Their Surroundings While Others Display Bright Colors as a Warning. What Keeps Them Safest? Smithsonian Mag
A Humorous Reading of Some of the Oldest Recorded Jokes in Human History Laughing Squid (Video)
Climate/Environment
The Amazon Rainforest is Showing Signs of Plastic Pollution in Ways We Still Don’t Fully Understand ZME Science
Trump administration announces massive coal push with 13.1 million acres for new leasing Down To Earth
Revealed: Europe losing 600 football pitches of nature and crop land a day The Guardian
Rivers are heating up faster than the air − that’s a problem for aquatic life and people The Conversation
THE CLIMATE CASINO: INSIDE THE MARKETS BETTING ON OUR PLANET’S FUTURE Atmos
Pandemics
New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases Bioengineer.org
The Koreas
Gov’t document storage system destroyed in fire at state data center Yonhap
South Korea to increase defense budget by 8.2% next year, President Lee says Reuters
China?
China Tested a Secret Ballistic Missile With Extraordinary Trajectory Defense Express
China Now Has More Factory Robots Than the Rest of the World Combined ZME Science
China’s wage growth is losing steam amid economic transition Think China
China issues retaliatory rules ahead of US port fee targeting Chinese vessels South China Morning Post
Yao Yang on China’s Leverage in the US Trade War (Part 3) Sinification
KMT lawmakers slam U.S. ’50-50′ chip idea after Lutnick comments Focus Taiwan
South of the Border
President Maduro Signs ‘State of External Unrest’ Decree in Response to US Threats Orinoco Tribune
US to target Venezuelan cartel land routes after Caribbean strikes, Trump says Intellinews
https://t.co/UGEhlS855I pic.twitter.com/qtZTCSpBSA
— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 30, 2025
Syraqistan
Trump’s 20-Point Gaza Plan: A Rubber Stamp of Legitimacy on Israel’s Subjugation of Palestine Drop Site
Spain blocks transfer of US weapons to Israel through its military bases Middle East Monitor
Italy withdraws from Gaza aid flotilla as ‘Israel’ threat looms Al Mayadeen. Not going to be a good look for Meloni govt if/when the 50 Italians on board are harmed and strikes shut down the country.
Dutch-flagged vessel remains adrift and ablaze, crew evacuated, after attack in Gulf of Aden New Arab
***
A nuclear bomb is a nuclear bomb… and Netanyahu is crazy enough to use.
— Patricia Marins (@pati_marins64) October 1, 2025
‘Humiliating’ US offers put Iran’s Reformist president in crosshairs Amwaj
Scoop: Turkey To Declare S-400 ‘Inoperable’ To Gain F-35 Stealth Fighter Deal National Security Journal
Iraq at a crossroads: A new war front? Al Mayadeen
Morocco rocked by violent clashes as youths protest health, education system France24
The feeling tonight is that the entire Middle East, from Morocco to Yemen to the Persian Gulf to Lebanon and Jordan, and maybe Egypt too, is about to erupt in war and earth-shattering protest. A big, big, big shake-up is on the horizon. I am with the oppressed and for justice…
— Alon Mizrahi (@alon_mizrahi) September 30, 2025
European Disunion
Copenhagen on high alert for the double European summit: six countries send personnel and equipment to protect leaders from drones EU News. Relentless gaslighting.
Ex-NATO boss calls to sacrifice health and education to fund Ukraine RT
New Not-So-Cold War
Some in US & European Blob & Elite Are ‘Dying For World War 3: US Directs Strikes On Russian Territory/Prelude To Nuclear War: Why Trump Will Be Forced To Enter Ukraine War To Back Europe Mark Sleboda (Video)
WHEN TOMAHAWK MEETS BEAR, THE HAZEL TREE (ORESHNIK) WINS John Helmer
Russia’s military production goes into surplus Intellinews
EU pledges €2bn for Ukraine drones and demands urgent boost to eastern defences Irish Times
Polish president ready to talk with Russian leader if Poland’s security depends on it TASS
US in contact with Belarus to ‘ensure lines of communication’ with Putin, Kellogg says Kyiv Independent
‘His drug is power’: Lukashenko reaches out to the west The Guardian. Misleading headline. Real story: “European diplomatic sources have meanwhile said there are tentative discussions in Brussels over whether the EU’s policy of isolating Belarus remains effective, and if offering Lukashenko a way out of Moscow’s shadow should be considered.“
Ukraine assassinates Russian lieutenant colonel far from front lines, intelligence claims Kyiv Independent
L’affaire Epstein
Exclusive: How private intelligence brought the U.S. treasury secretary into contact with Epstein’s corporate web All-Source Intelligence
Trump 2.0
Government shutdown 2025: A guide to what’s still open, what’s closed and what’s fuzzy Politico
Trump: We can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible and bad for them like cutting vast numbers of people out. Cutting things they like, cutting programs they like.
We can do things medically and other ways including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people. pic.twitter.com/hGFE4F2FoL
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 30, 2025
Billions in Taxpayer Dollars Have Become Virtually Untraceable NOTUS (resilc)
President announces TrumpRx website for drugs, and pricing deal with Pfizer NPR
Former Trump campaign manager registers as foreign agent for Israel The Hill
Millions Could Lose Housing Aid Under Trump Plan ProPublica
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Hegseth addresses top commanders at Quantico, puts focus on warfighting: ‘Era of the Department of Defense is over’ Stars and Stripes
Was Trump’s Meeting with the US Military Brass Today a Cover for Action? And a Charlie Kirk Update Larry Johnson. With some Yves insight.
Military leaders voice concern over Hegseth’s new Pentagon strategy WaPo
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Trump floats using Chicago, other Democrat-led cities as military training ground, troops coming ‘very soon’ Chicago Sun-Times
‘Let’s Go Bash Some Skulls’: Inside the Militarization of Trump’s America Inkstick
Oregon National Guard Leader Laments Portland Deployment Ken Klippenstein
Democrats en déshabillé
Trump’s NSPM-7 Alarms Law Firms While Congress Is Silent Ken Klippenstein
Liberals are catalysts to catastrophe, again Al Jazeera
Weimar Republic
Lawyer for suspect in Charlie Kirk killing wants more time to review ‘voluminous’ evidence AP
Our Famously Free Press
Israel is paying influencers $7,000 per post Responsible Statecraft
2/ The judge observed that “the judicial role is limited to safeguarding the rights of all persons lawfully present in this country. This includes the freedom of speech that allows those persons to understand each other and to debate. If ‘terrorist’ is interpreted to mean…
— Jenin Younes (@JeninYounesEsq) September 30, 2025
Police State Watch
Reagan-appointed U.S. District Judge Paul G. Young on ICE wearing masks:
“ICE goes masked for a single reason — to terrorize Americans into quiescence.”
“In all our history we have never tolerated an armed masked secret police.” pic.twitter.com/ZNMXO9SDd8
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) September 30, 2025
ICE to Buy Tool that Tracks Locations of Hundreds of Millions of Phones Every Day 404 Media
Imperial Collapse Watch
AMERICA’S VIGILANTES: A Green Beret’s Confession Outraged the Military. Then He Found an Ally in Trump. New York Times Magazine. First in a four-part series on crimes and impunity within the US Special Forces. Gift links to rest of stories can be found here.
Accelerationists
They Want To Ruin Your Life What We Lost
AI
ChatGPT and the end of learning The Argument
Israel wants to train ChatGPT to be more pro-Israel Responsible Statecraft
Immigration
Immigration officials outline plans to accept new DACA applicants CBS News
MAHA
America reverts to calling mpox ‘monkeypox’ in anti-woke drive The Telegraph
Groves of Academe
Private Equity’s New Playground: America’s Schools The Lever
Healthcare?
How Do Financial Conditions Affect Professional Conduct? Evidence from Opioid Prescriptions National Bureau of Economic Research. “We find that providers increase opioid prescriptions when experiencing adverse financial conditions…”
“Liberation Day”
Trump doubles down on film tariffs that experts call ‘impossible’ The Hill
Donald Trump announces timber and furniture tariffs in national security probe Irish Times
Economy
Moderate US job openings, weak hiring underscore labor market stagnation Reuters
The Bezzle
Waymo Says There’s a Perfect Reasonable Explanation for Its Car Roaming a Golf Course Futurism
Class Warfare
A Cozy Gaming Empire Working Class Stories
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Antidote:
I think that’s the nag I bet on @ the ‘oval office’ that finished next to last in a $10k claiming race @ Del Mar, or maybe a unique Unicone?
From the AP article on Kirk,
Many prominent Republicans are filling in at the upcoming campus events Kirk planned to attend, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Sen. Mike Lee at Utah State University on Tuesday.
Dozens of students expected to attend, lol.
Perhaps the military buildup near Venezuela is intended as a distraction/diversion, and the real aim is Iran. Trump does that a lot.
I’m having a hard time holding up, and I’ve quit Twitter. There is so much bleak news all over the place. It’s always been this way, but it seems worse now.
ChatGPT and the end of learning. Medical education is also suffering, not that the students seem to notice. I put this up on a white board outside of our tutorial rooms last spring. It lasted about a week before someone removed it (apologies to the original author for paraphrasing the original; I have forgotten where I first saw this):
Generative Algorithmic Intelligence (AI) can simulate all the steps: it can summarize readings, pull out key concepts, draft text, and even generate ideas for discussion. But that would be like going to the gym and asking a robot to lift weights for you.
This will not end well. The magic fairy dust that makes medical school “easy” has arrived, finally! The MedEd community is all-in on the (positive) utility of AI, however, believing it can be domesticated. But still, I ask the high-flyers in the class how they study and the answer is the same: We follow the syllabus, use actual textbooks, take notes by hand, pay attention when we are in tutorial group, and use supplemental resources only after we have mastered the material as well as we can. To head off one response I get often, Medical College Admission Test scores of these students is not correlated with their performance in the curriculum.