Dear patient readers,
Forgive me for a mini-rant. Readers may have noticed that the terrible state of search has gotten worse due to AI. Browsers like Firefox and Safari limit the choice of default browsers and do not allow non-mainstream ones like Yandex or Kagi. Google is now unusable. If you try searches within sites, which is an important feature for me, it now regularly gives false negatives:
There is an upside. This will now force me to use Orion + Kagi, and neither retains use histories.
‘No one believed it’: how a YouTube video accidentally proved Libya’s sand cat really does exist Guardian (Rolf A)
Mountain lions changed everything in this tiny California preserve Science Daily (Kevin W)
Lost in Translation Nible (Micael T)
War and Peace Mauricio Berman (fk). Important.
When the Waiting Is Over Oldster (Micael T)
Kids Are Flying Into Lunatic Rages When Their iPads Are Taken Away Futurism. From last month, still germane
#COVID-19/Pandemics
Sri Lanka’s dengue outbreak reaches epidemic level as cases top 50,000: Health officials Anadolu Agency
Climate/Environment
The race to understand how and when Thwaites glacier will collapse New Scientist
Warming Skies Have Triggered a New Era of Unpredictable Storms Atmos
Ocean warming above 1.5°C triggered year-round marine disruption across globe, study shows PhysOrg
Record coal output contrasts sharply with emissions-cutting claims Energy Live
‘This is terrifying’: The Colorado River, a lifeline for seven states, is drying up at its source Los Angeles Times
Iowa’s renewable energy push is paying off Cedar Rapids Gazette (Robin K)
China?
US Navy’s repair gap could hand the Pacific war to China Asia Times (Kevin W)
China blacklists more Japanese entities as row deepens Japan Times
a href=”https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/not-even-the-world-cup-can-save-the?” rel=”nofollow”>Not even the World Cup can save the American travel industry, as China takes over top spot Kevin Walmsley
Japan
Yen Hits Four-Decade Low in Historic Slide That’s Rattled Japan Bloomberg
Japan protests against China’s maritime claims near southern island Straits Times
India
The Thirst Beneath the AI Revolution: India’s Data Centres and the Coming Water Crisis CounterCurrents
Southeast Asia
Why $20 durians are now being sold at half price – or given away for free BBC
How war and poverty are driving Myanmar’s drug crisis UCA News
Africa
Sahel: how the return of El Niño could exacerbate instability 24ORE
Tanzania hit by nationwide blackout following major national grid failure ChannelAfrica
South of the Border
Satellite images show destruction from Venezuela earthquakes Al Jazeera (Kevin W)
Government loosens dollar lending rules, raising echoes of 2001 crisis Buenos Aires Herald
Struggle continues’ in Bolivia’s Morales heartland France24
How Venezuela’s earthquakes have shaken President Delcy Rodriguez Aljazeera
Peru’s Keiko Fujimori wins presidential election, in latest victory for Latin American right Guardian (Robin K)
European Disunion
Trump threatens 100% tax on European imports if countries impose tax on digital services Associated Press (Kevin W)
Europe risks starting winter with gas stocks at 15-year low Financial Times
EU confronts ‘China shock’ ahead of pivotal Brussels trade talks South China Morning Post
A visit to Hüseyin Doğru’s family – readers can see for themselves on site Nackdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
European heatwave is worst ever and impossible without climate crisis, scientists say Guardian. From last week, still germane.
Extreme heatwave across Europe raises energy and inflation concerns CGTN
Germany joins push to delay EU methane rules Politico
+1000% de mortalité chez les poules, +200% chez les porcs, +45% chez les bovins.
Plusieurs millions d'animaux d'élevage sont morts sous l'effet de la canicule. Nous sommes en train de vivre une catastrophe agricole majeure, qui rejoint le traumatisme de 2003 comme étant les deux… pic.twitter.com/dxJvW9PFS5
— Dr. Serge Zaka (Dr. Zarge) (@SergeZaka) June 26, 2026
Von der Leyen’s office accused of ‘feudalism’ over air conditioning RT (Kevin W)
I’m an American living in Europe during the Great AC Wars Revolver (Li)
Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner Economist (Li)
Old Blighty
The finance curse is devouring the UK LFF (Colonel Smithers)
Burnham’s rise revives talk of war bonds to fund the UK military Fortune
Call for political stability to help farming industry BBC
Pea shortage looms after earliest harvest in 14 years Independent
Balkans
Kushner-linked protests reveal depth of anger at Albanian leaders Japan Times
Serbia: Protests continue after Vucic says he will step down DW
Israel v. The Resistance
Thread on the medical experiments conducted on at least a thousand Yemeni Jewish babies stolen in hospitals by the Israeli government in the early 1950s https://t.co/X57BsqnZOW
— moe tkacik (@moetkacik) June 29, 2026
Report: Israel Reviving Gaza Ethnic Cleansing Plan, Rebranding It as ‘Free Movement Plan’ Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Bayer in league with Israeli use of glyphosate, white phosphorus Middle East Eye (Robin K)
I really don’t care who ends this evil, but it needs to end. https://t.co/XMjI12o8AN
— Kathleen Tyson (@Kathleen_Tyson_) June 29, 2026
The Jewish Community Center in Birmingham, to which I belonged (70% goyim membership because gym and pools; also a one minute drive from the house) got 2 bomb threats from this clown and implemented all sorts of new security procedures. Staff seemed pretty traumatized:
Michael Kadar, US/Israel dual citizen was indicted in Florida on Monday for bomb threats against Jewish institutions in 2016 & 2017.
ADL included Kadar’s incidents in its inflated 2017 antisemitism report, constituting 9% of all incidents.
Racially motivated hate crimes such as… https://t.co/NWmeScL5k3 pic.twitter.com/G1cstQLGKB
— GenXGirl (@GenXGirl1994) June 28, 2026
In the shadow of Minab: Inside the US testing of ‘new missiles’ on Iran’s Lamerd Middle East Eye (Kevin W)
This is where it's going, btw. Trump has made us vulnerable to this reality with his stupid war. And the Iranians are NOT interested in actually ending anything because they know they can win this contest. We are headed off a cliff. God help us all. https://t.co/Wuk5ulGpbK
— Brandon Weichert (@WeTheBrandon) June 29, 2026
Iraq arrests protesters as unrest spreads over power cuts New Arab
Syraqistan
Iraqi officials arrested in major corruption crackdown Associated Press (Robin K)
I can't stress enough how much this tweet gets wrong.
First, Prime Minister al-Zaidi is hardly the person who initiated this campaign. At most, he is overseeing its implementation in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief. The more likely driving force lies within Iraq's judicial… https://t.co/pN34s97qZY
— Harith Hasan (@harith_hasan) June 28, 2026
Israel says troops kill armed militants in southern Syria, vows continued military presence Kurdistan24
New Not-So-Cold War
One reason to believe that things are not so bad in Russia is that real median wages are up 25% since the war began, inflation has fallen to single digits, and the unemployment rate is 2.5%. Macro-economically, Russia is doing better than anyone in the geopolitical West. https://t.co/oSQR1ulVP3
— Policy Tensor (@policytensor) June 28, 2026
BREAKING: Merchant of Death Warns Russia Is Preparing for a Devastating Attack on Western Europe Tucker Carlson (Micael T)
Russia has begun installing weapons on its tankers, The Times reports.
Two 12.7mm Utes machine guns were spotted on the bridge of the Marshal Vasilevsky, one of Russia's main LNG carriers, likely to protect against drones and boarding attempts. pic.twitter.com/wmTa7Wt8dX
— Victor vicktop55 commentary (@vick55top) June 29, 2026
Ukraine flexes regional might with tougher stance on Belarus The Times
The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service reports that the Kiev regime has stepped up cooperation with Mexican drug cartels, increasing trafficking through the port of Odessa and providing infrastructure to flood Europe with more drugs.
This has been a pretty fruitful… pic.twitter.com/89t9vMpKHn
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) June 29, 2026
Imperial Collapse Watch
2026 trends: geopolitics and escalation Events in Ukraine
America seeks its McDonald’s model for missile making Financial Times
Steven Spielberg’s Moral Equivalent of War Un-Diplomatic
Trump 2.0
Supreme Court rules states can count late-arriving mailed ballots, rejecting Trump-led challenge Associated Press
MAHA feels betrayed after Supreme Court ruling on Monsanto, glyphosate The Hill (Kevin W)
Our No Longer Free Press
When saving journalism pays better than doing journalism Amphibian (ma)
Economy
Can Energy Become Money? Doug Casey (Micael T)
Water shortages could prevent the US from mining more lithium, deepening reliance on foreign imports Live Science
Mr. Market Needs a Therapist
The Trillion-Dollar Borrowing Binge Lifting the Stock Market to Risky Heights Wall Street Journal
Oil Markets Are Pricing A Supply Surge That Isn’t Guaranteed OilPrice
Big oil’s secretive trading arms are having an extraordinary year Economist
The Bezzle
Zepbound Craze Fuels $1.3 Billion Windfall for Religious Causes Bloomberg (fk)
Class Warfare
College is unaffordable for many Americans — but don’t just blame rising tuition Kansas Reflector (Robin K)
Millions Lose ACA Coverage After Trump and Republicans Let Subsidies Expire The Intellectualist
Why are a record number of American adults living with their parents? RT (Robin K)
Antidote du jour. mgl: “Canada geese + goslings, Potter Marsh, Anchorage, Alaska. It’s springtime!”
And a bouns:
Sammy the seal was always begging for food at an Ireland restaurant, so the staff started feeding him daily at 9am, 1pm, and 4pm. Now he flops out of the water, looks both ways, crosses the road, and awaits his prize at those exact times every day. He is never late. pic.twitter.com/0qkpwR81i7
— Wolf of X (@WolfofX) June 28, 2026
A second bonus:
Kitty desperately teaching its owner how to retract its claws lololol
Too cute lololol pic.twitter.com/AehXspln3Y— cats with powerful impression 🐾 (@catshealdeprsn) June 28, 2026
And a different sort of antidote. We have featured some of resilc’s metal art before. I love pinwheels and this one spins. If I were in the US and had a yard, I would commission one and find a way to get it to me.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
Hi Yves, Firefox allows to add a search engine. I haven’t tried it myself with Kagi but seems worth a shot.
Yes
Also if for some queries you can’t get what you want, it may be worth to try duckduckgo/bing, for example for this specific query duckduckgo gives the correct result.
Just FYI, the Walmsley US travel link is malformed (missing “<“ at the beginning, I think).
‘moe tkacik
@moetkacik
Thread on the medical experiments conducted on at least a thousand Yemeni Jewish babies stolen in hospitals by the Israeli government in the early 1950s’
Dr. Mengele to the courtesy phone, please. This was all going on right from the beginning of when their country was formed and seems to be an ongoing scandal that won’t go away-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemenite_Children_Affair
The final quote in the mountain lion link says it all:
“ Humans remain the leading cause of mountain lion deaths, whether through hunting or vehicle collisions.
“Clearly, we exert our own ecology of fear,” she said. “Humans are the ultimate predator on almost every landscape.”
> ‘No one believed it’: how a YouTube video accidentally proved Libya’s sand cat really does exist Guardian (Rolf A)
The 18 second YouTube video shows a cat carefully choosing a shaded spot and arranging itself to rest in it. So understandably no one believed it :P
“2 bomb threats from this clown”: surely “clown” is much too kind a term.
Anyway why shouldn’t Israeli-Americans fake racism incidents? Other sorts of hyphenated Americans seem to do it all the time.
You had the same sort of thing happening here in Oz but I doubt that it will be mentioned during the ongoing Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. Such claims would be called antisemitic. /sarc
Coffee Lost in Translation, by Camilleri at Nimble.
In fact, Camilleri gets something seriously wrong throughout. What the big chains like corporatized Costa and Starbucks *do* not want to do is import Italian coffee culture.
Camilleri gets this right: “Costa is caught between these two forces without a clear answer to either. It is too expensive to compete on price, and not good enough to compete on quality. That is not a marketing problem. It is a product problem. And product problems do not resolve through restructuring announcements.”
In Italy, the price of a caffè normale (espresso) is the source of controversy. Here in the Chocolate City, I pay more or less 1,40 (one euro forty, which is USD 1.50). Italians are highly sensitive to changes in coffee prices.
Then there is the custom at some caffès that a coffee at the “bancone,” bar, is less than a coffee at a table.
Then there is the tyranny of choice in Anglo-America that has ruined coffee. Starbucks is pumping out the pumpkin-spice ice-frothy whippyccino at 9 dollars a pop. Here in the Chocolate City, there is a big Starbucks just off Via Roma. It is for the gioventù dorata. Regular Italians consider it pricey and snotty.
I recall early Starbucks (around 1990). The barista could still make an espresso coffee, served in a tazzina. By the time I was living in Edgewater in Chicago near the famous Berwyn Avenue Starbucks, they couldn’t make a proper espresso coffee — and the single tazzina, yes, the one demitasse, was kept locked in a cabinet. And a caffè macchiato at Starbucks is a milkshake of misguided foam.
It’s the tyranny of consumer choice and the endless bullshit of Anglo-American “marketing.” Here in Italy, the vast majority of orders at the places I frequent are caffé normale, caffè macchiato, and cappuccino. And why would one want to deviate from perfection? (Well, there is the marocchino.)
Italians will simply limit the menu: At one place I frequent, they don’t have whipped cream, which normally goes on a hot chocolate. So I go elsewhere for hot chocolate. The same place experimented with a U.S. style self-service container for caffè americano. I knew it wouldn’t work. The experiment ended in about a month. What followed undoubtedly was misuse and waste, which Italians won’t tolerate.
So nothing in the fate of Costa surprises me. Camilleri gets this right: “The original Costa brothers understood something that three decades of institutional ownership have quietly eroded: that coffee, properly made, is one of the simplest pleasures available to a human being, and that the job of a coffee business is to get out of the way of that pleasure rather than to complicate it with volume, milk, and the economics of throughput.”
In short, enshittification for the sake of high profits and de-skilling the workforce. Think of how hard it is to find a decent piece of pie in the U S of A.
The culture of coffee is a ritual of fleeting sensuality, and a few moments of repose, which are just what one needs and what Calvinism won’t tolerate.
I can and do use Kagi as the default search on Firefox https://help.kagi.com/kagi/getting-started/setting-default.html
Cool! Thanks a ton!
Yves, I don’t know if it is a firefox on apple thing that prevents adding Yandex or other search engine, but on Firefox in linux, I can add a search engine in the settings and make it default. I can add “https://yandex.com/search?text=%s” as the URL and once added, select it to be default in the drop down menu above where I added it. I get a “are you a robot” complaint the first search but then it works fine afterwards.
For what it is worth, you can simply make Yandex an ordinary bookmark-
https://yandex.com/
Once you click inside the search box, all sorts of options appear above it.
Mauricio Berman. War and Peace. Highly recommended.
Exactly: “This is why peace, for both the individual and society at large, is so threatening: it brings us face to face with issues that are painful, even scary, to confront. Better the carnage of war than the carnage of the psyche, is the idea; in reality, a sad state of affairs.”
This is why peace is the only path. And this is why the warmongers are so obviously so lacking, the kind of people who think that setting the dinner table as you wait for guests is nothing compared to glorious loose talk about bombs. Three of such specimens: Mark Rutte, Ursula von der Leyen, Lindsey Graham.
This is also why I keep this poem in mind:
The Anactoria Poem
Some say thronging cavalry, some say foot soldiers,
others call a fleet the most beautiful of
sights the dark earth offers, but I say it’s what-
ever you love best.
And it’s easy to make this understood by
everyone, for she who surpassed all human
kind in beauty, Helen, abandoning her
husband—that best of
men—went sailing off to the shores of Troy and
never spent a thought on her child or loving
parents: when the goddess seduced her wits and
left her to wander,
she forgot them all, she could not remember
anything but longing, and lightly straying
aside, lost her way. But that reminds me
now: Anactória,
she’s not here, and I’d rather see her lovely
step, her sparkling glance and her face than gaze on
all the troops in Lydia in their chariots and
glittering armor.
From The Poetry of Sappho (Oxford University Press 2007), translated by Jim Powell.
But, heck, Sappho is just one more Dead White Man, to be played by Jennifer Lawrence in the upcoming biopic.