Links 6/7/2026

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1. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 7:19 am

   “SDSU Wired Its Dorms with 1,300 AI Cameras Without Telling Students”

   San Diego State University does concede, however, that placing AI-enabled video cameras in the toilet stalls and the girls shower room may have overstepped the ledge somewhat.

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   1. flora June 7, 2026 at 8:16 am

      Wonder if SDSU is using patrolling robot dogs. / ;)

      Robot Dogs Are A Security Nightmare

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA8WuXDXfcI

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      1. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 8:18 am

         Robot dogs with fricken’ lasers! :)

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         1. Oregon Lawhobbit June 8, 2026 at 4:30 pm

            Or plasma rifles in the 40 watt range.

            That said, you want Skynet? This is how you get Skynet.

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            1. skippy June 8, 2026 at 5:07 pm

               I am reminded in the frisky early NC days how some very ideological fundies that skewed technolibertarian/AnCap/AET market utopians, digital/computational capital would be used to indoctrinate society – too their – preferences. Right here on this blog …. chortled about it ….

               Furthermore at the time there was a flood of MSM/Tech publications banging on at the time about with enough terabits one could model reality in real/near time. Hence the need for all the data collection public/private. With this they can model outcomes, seen as future/s time travel.

               I bemuse myself with the idea that all these data centers are really religious sites, places of divine worship, where the priest class assembles to interpret the data from heaven/gods …. then the unwashed get the sermon …

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               1. ambrit June 8, 2026 at 5:24 pm

                  ” …then the unwashed get the sermon …” and end up paying the tithes.

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   2. Mark Gisleson June 7, 2026 at 9:35 am

      Hallway cams track all traffic in and out of bathrooms. Cafeteria and commons cams monitor all food eaten by students. No need for stall-cams when you already know what’s going to come out. Would love to know how many bathroom trips you’re allowed before campus security finds it necessary to question you.

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      1. ambrit June 7, 2026 at 11:22 am

         And will those Israeli trained ‘campus coppers’ question you “con significa?”
         “The Wonderful World of Gaza,” coming to a public space near you!

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         1. JMH June 7, 2026 at 12:12 pm

            To whose benefit? Students as lab rats. Is there something to follow the experiment? Is this to be the future? Something done because it is possible to do it? Why is it being done? What prompted this exercise? Whatever happened to the university as a place of free inquiry? Wher, under what rock, do you find this breed of university administrator? The layers of bureaucracy and the narrow minded bureaucrats who infest colleges and universities is a plague.

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            1. ambrit June 7, 2026 at 1:11 pm

               Students have always been “Lab Rats,” and not the ‘Pinky and the Brain’ type either.
               See the history of Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, as an example.
               See, the neutered Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
               See also: https://www.thetedkarchive.com/library/jeffrey-st-clair-alexander-cockburn-the-unabomber-the-cia-and-lsd
               One may view the above as “muck raking” but look at the two authors.
               Stay safe.

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2. flora June 7, 2026 at 7:43 am

   AI and cameras. From Benn Jordan.

   It’s Time to Take Down your Smart Cameras

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

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3. Vicky Cookies June 7, 2026 at 8:01 am

   The CFR piece on Venezuelan oil of course voices not even the most timorous objection to the blatant theft, the resource imperialism. The impression I got from it is that a lot of money and social capital have been invested in Nobel Peace Prize winner Marina Corina Machado, and the section of the foreign policy crowd focused on Latin America doesn’t want to give up on installing her just yet. The Venezuelan government is submitting monthly budget requests to the U.S. Treasury, and that’s fine with the author; she prefers, however, to hold Venezuelan assets and credit hostage until “democratic” concessions are made. “Democratic”, here, refers to a style of procedure, and has no other meaning or connotations. Those concessions would allow the U.S. to do what it is doing right now, but Trump has cut out the middle man, which is a no-no for those for whom middle-manning is a lucrative pursuit.

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   1. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 8:06 am

      How do you know that Trump is not using this slush fund for money to finance Repubs running in the Midterms in a few months time? How could you find out?

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      1. Vicky Cookies June 7, 2026 at 9:16 am

         The opacity of it was brought up as a concern, but being a careful, serious person committed to accuracy, the author didn’t draw speculative conclusions. Suggesting an open accounting of the spoils is the move of someone looking for their share.

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   2. pjay June 7, 2026 at 9:52 am

      Yes. This is simply a view from the neoliberal faction of the National Security Establishment. Trump’s blatant piracy is questioned, but as you note the calls for “democracy,” the rhetoric about “civil society,” and the suggestion of Machado’s popularity are all tells.

      I’m always curious about the backgrounds of these elite mouthpieces who publish in Foreign Affairs and other such outlets. I couldn’t help but notice that the author, Roxanna Vigil, was “an International Affairs Fellow in National Security, sponsored by Janine and J. Tomilson Hill.” Such non-permanent CFR participants are sponsored by prominent full members such as J. Tomilson Hill. If that name sounds familiar, here’s a bit of his bio:

      “James Tomilson “Tom” Hill III (born May 24, 1948)… is an American billionaire hedge fund manager, the former president and CEO of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM), Blackstone Group’s hedge funds business… Hill started his career at First Boston in 1973, where he was one of the founding principals of its mergers and acquisitions department, and then moved to Smith Barney, where he served as the head of its mergers and acquisitions department. In 1982, he joined Lehman Brothers as a partner in its M&A department and later became head of M&A, head of Investment Banking and co-CEO. Filmmaker Oliver Stone used J. Tomilson Hill as one of several inspirations for the character Gordon Gekko, portrayed by Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie, Wall Street…”

      And so on. Hill is a former CFR Board member. His wife is director of fellowship affairs at the Council.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Tomilson_Hill

      The author herself strikes me as a rather typical sincere recruit who was socialized into her current position and worldview after receiving a State Department fellowship following an undergrad degree in Latin American studies. Here is her own story:

      https://www.cfr.org/articles/how-i-got-my-career-foreign-policy-roxanna-vigil

      So how does such a promising but apparently non-elite young women get a CFR sponsorship by someone like the Tomilsons?

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      1. In Cold Chud June 7, 2026 at 11:10 am

         By showing absolute, rock-solid ideological reliability so featureless that there is not a single foothold for doubt.

         As this is something difficult to fake or even conceal the absence of, its occurrence alongside basic literacy and professional presentation is enough.

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      2. Rod June 7, 2026 at 1:10 pm

         The work ethic of Latin Americans has to be admired as well as the dexterity of utilizing your social network and modifying and adjusting your plans to new opportunities.
         That’s the take away I got from her bio.

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   3. hk June 7, 2026 at 12:58 pm

      The “establishment liberal” idea of “democracy” is that we impose dictators “we” like, rather than cut deals with dubious figures inside the incumbent regime to sell out the leader. Come to think of it, this is exactly Trump vs Harris, no? The former basically Maduroed himself on behalf of the warmongers and Zionists. The latter is basically the yanqui Machado…

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4. Carolinian June 7, 2026 at 8:13 am

   Re 60 minutes and CBS–after years of self censorship, skewed coverage, Dan Rather and his flag pins, the million dollar babies of network news get all sanctimonious about free speech. Please! There’s a reason why we denizens spend all our time on the internet and they are it. The MSM committed informational suicide long before our clown president and his allies could pull the trigger.

   Trump himself is a product of this dumbing down of the news, and while his home turf is Fox the three originals ended up imitating it in many ways (MSNBC) after at first sneering at it.

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5. Timmy June 7, 2026 at 8:38 am

   Al Jazeera is reporting that Israel has attacked Hezbollah in south Beirut.

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   1. Ann June 7, 2026 at 10:05 am

      Pete Hegseth’s D-day speech on immigration condemned as ‘grotesque stupidity’

      https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/07/pete-hegseth-d-day-speech-immigration-grotesque-stupidity

      Israeli military has struck ‘terrorist’ headquarters in Beirut, government says

      https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-has-struck-terrorist-headquarters-beirut-government-says-2026-06-07/

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      1. Timmy June 7, 2026 at 11:13 am

         The attack on Beirut is an important potential tripwire to escalation and has got to be raising tensions with Israel in DC. Yet I’ve only seen this mentioned on Al Jazeera and in Ann’s link to Reuters. Bloomberg and the NYTimes have nothing. Now Al Jazeera’s live feed is reporting an Iranian response that there will be retailiation.

         “Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, has warned Iran will “deliver a decisive and painful response” to the Israeli attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

         “These rabid dogs must be disciplined and put back in their place. Look at the sky over the occupied lands tonight,” he wrote on X.

         Earlier, Israeli strikes “targeted two apartments in two buildings”, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency.”

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         1. Polar Socialist June 7, 2026 at 12:33 pm

            Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee promised Iran will “discipline” Israel because the Zionist regime understands only power.

            Mohammad Ghalibaf, speaker of the parliament, said that US bases and forces in the region are included in this “diciplining”.

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            1. hk June 7, 2026 at 1:01 pm

               If Iranians have a certain morbid sense of humor (and they have already shown that they have plenty), they’ll call them “attacks on ‘Israeli proxies’ in Kuwait, UAE, etc.”)

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               1. GF June 7, 2026 at 7:10 pm

                  Speaking of humorous: Iran seems to have one-upmanshipped Trump with this attack by disrupting Trump’s Monday morning timeline of doing things before the markets open that increase his personal wealth. Be ready for a steep decline tomorrow morning in the stock market.

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         2. vao June 7, 2026 at 1:02 pm

            There was that other Israeli attack yesterday deliberately targeting a car transporting a brigadier general, a captain, and a soldier from the Lebanese army; they were all killed. From their names, the captain (Elie Khoury) was probably a Christian, and the soldier (Hussein Ghazal) a Muslim. I cannot determine what community the general (Wissam Sabra) belongs to.

            Rumours have it that Israel is relying upon its spies infiltrated in the Lebanese government and administration to identify those leaders of the Lebanese military who are “too nationalistic” and refuse mounting operations to “disarm Hezbollah”.

            Israel has truly thrown the gauntlet; it is not just Hezbollah, but the whole of the Lebanese society it intends to reduce to submission.

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            1. hk June 7, 2026 at 9:38 pm

               Wissam seems to be a Sunni name. While Hussein is too universal a name to peg to a specific tribe, I’d wager he might be a Shi’ite. If so, that’s an interesting and potentially volatile mix of religious groups that was in that car.

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6. AG June 7, 2026 at 8:41 am

   re: AI

   Corey Robin post:

   In the New York Review of Books, Dan Chiasson has an excellent piece on capitalism and AI, and how what it seeks to rob us of is time, particularly those long impasses where we’re struggling to find words, on the assumption that it can just do it for you, and do it for you better, thereby saving you time, when in fact, saving time is exactly what you don’t need or want, because struggling to figure out what you think and feel and want has so much to do with what *you* ultimately think and feel and want, and why these are your feelings and thoughts and wants, not just for the moment but into the future, as opposed to someone else’s. AI is like having someone else just live your life, super fast, because that would be far more efficient. Along the way, Chiasson offers some pertinent passages from T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Lowell.

   From East Coker:

   So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years—
   Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l’entre deux guerres—
   Trying to use words, and every attempt
   Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
   Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
   For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
   One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
   Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
   With shabby equipment always deteriorating
   In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
   Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
   By strength and submission, has already been discovered
   Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
   To emulate—but there is no competition—
   There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
   And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
   That seem unpropitious.

   From Robert Lowell:

   Have you seen an inchworm crawl on a leaf,
   cling to the very end, revolve in air,
   feeling for something to reach to something?
   Do
   you still hang your words in air, ten years
   unfinished, glued to your notice board, with gaps
   or empties for the unimaginable phrase—
   unerring Muse who makes the casual perfect?
   From Dickinson:
   To fill a Gap
   Insert the Thing that caused it—
   Block it up
   With Other—and ‘twill yawn the more—
   You cannot solder an Abyss
   With Air.

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   1. Vicky Cookies June 7, 2026 at 9:34 am

      Thanks for the wonderful poetry, AG. You point to the aspect of technologically mediated attention I try and warn friends about: having someone else decide for you what it is on which you spend your time. To the point about time-saving, I think those concerns are more intelligible when read through a class lens. It’s about saving bosses from paying for your time, the old productivity panic.

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      1. AG June 7, 2026 at 11:56 am

         I find it uplifting that the public is engaging in criticism this early into AI.
         Fwiw right now it´s a serious general discussion even MSM are involved in.
         On the other hand: Same was true about surveillance and the dangers of digital life 25 years ago…under a Republican POTUS who – I remember very well – was generally subject to condemnation and scathing criticism by most, worst and most dangeorus POTUS of all time. Today he is almost regarded as benign which I just cannot wrap my head around.
         But so, perhaps we need another DNC presidency to turn it around for AI and make it accepted, integrate it, even regard it as protection against Martians.

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         1. Vicky Cookies June 7, 2026 at 1:12 pm

            I’ll say that opposition to AI seems broader than had been that to mass surveillance. A dem administration would still struggle to sell something this unpopular, especially if they use their usual strategy of scoffing at the vulgar concerns of the plebs.

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            1. AG June 7, 2026 at 1:22 pm

               Lets hope you will proven right.

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   2. Acacia June 7, 2026 at 10:28 am

      Thanks, AG. Indeed, an excellent essay (de-paywalled):

      Think for Yourself
      https://archive.md/YrzuW

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      1. AG June 7, 2026 at 11:30 am

         thanks
         usually I dodge NYRB because closed off

         Reply ↓
7. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 9:00 am

   “25 technology predictions from 30 years ago and how accurate they were”

   This article gives a helluva lot of credit to Bill gates and his predictions but he too nearly stuffed up badly. When the internet started up Bill Gates dismissed the whole thing and thought it only a fad. His engineers would be screaming in his face – it was that sort of company back then – and trying to tell him how big it would become. He finally relented and allowed the engineers to hook up his home to the internet and Gates spent the whole weekend surfing it. When he came in to work he had become a true believer and demanded that his engineers cram the internet into every product that they had. Now that I think about it, didn’t he miss mobiles and tablets and let Steve Jobs steal a march on him there?

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   1. tegnost June 7, 2026 at 9:47 am

      Seems to be written by a technophile, where’s the self driving car, nobody promised flying cars in 10 years. AI is for censorship, surveillance, and authoritarian control, and a middle entity to be blamed for any fallout, not the precious billionaire useless eaters. Where’s the prediction that amazon and gig workers generally would destroy working class living standards? Definitely don’t have the time or inclination to get into it further, cheerleading bs. of course ignoring almost all of the blatantly horrible aspects of global technocracy. Ursula VdL should have put that concept to rest long ago,…but no.

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   2. elissa3 June 7, 2026 at 12:00 pm

      As a former private pilot, I can confidently assert that widespread use of individual-use flying cars, even with a presumed impeccable AI traffic control, would be a nightmare. Maybe very limited adoption in high density population areas–“air taxis”. Maybe.

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      1. Adam Eran June 7, 2026 at 4:35 pm

         After talking to someone familiar with the matter – a marketer for a flying car company – the expert advice is apparently these will perform the functions helicopters do now … ambulance, search & rescue, etc. The FAA would not allow otherwise.

         They’re apparently simpler to fly, so another excuse to cut helicopter pilots’ pay.

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      2. LawnDart June 7, 2026 at 5:19 pm

         Yeah, Individual-use flying-cars? That’s not gonna happen.

         China has had “flying cars” for around a decade, and aside from a few big toys for big boys they are anything but pushing these into the consumer market: everything, all EVTOLs and commercial drones, will be fully-automated and travel in well-mapped, designated routes within tightly-controlled airspace, but with manual-override available to Air Traffic Controllers.

         Although passenger drones have been around for about a decade, China is carefully and deliberately slow-footing the path to commercialization (which has been driving foreign investors completely nuts, by the way), but expect to see these in commercial service… soon. Oh, they’re considered “last-mile” transport, not “door-to-door” service, meaning they fly from designated hub to designated hub, and passengers can walk or catch ground-transport (a taxi) the rest of the way.

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   3. Bugs June 7, 2026 at 12:33 pm

      Microsoft was actually way ahead of Apple on smartphones but nobody remembers WindowsCE now because it was clunky and you had to be a bit of a geek to get the devices to work well. Apple had a notable failure with its Newton tablet personal assistant and was sort of chastised by it and averse to putting anything similar out until it “just worked”. The Windows Tablet PC with a touchscreen was a useful laptop for certain kinds of work but the Microsoft concept was that people wanted handwriting recognition, not that they would use an on screen keyboard. This was Ballmer holding back the development teams. Then Microsoft finally put out a decent smartphone OS and it was too late because the market had already been dominated by 2 major players and MS had no UPS, just the usual model of licensing to the hardware makers. Oh, and billg never had an original thought in his life.

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      1. Adam Eran June 7, 2026 at 4:38 pm

         Bell labs apparently invented voice recognition, but just for the numbers on the dial. It took government-funded research to have speech recognition.

         But hey, socialism is bad.

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      2. ChrisPacific June 7, 2026 at 10:08 pm

         The evolution of smartphones actually took a while and featured a lot of false starts. Personal digital assistants (Palm Pilot, Blackberry) were already a thing in the late 90s/early 2000s, as were mobile phones with some basic computing functionality. The CEO of a company I worked for in that time period was convinced that mobile phones were the future of technology and invested a great deal of company resources in it. He was about five to eight years too early (which translates to ‘wrong’ in commercial terms).

         The modern smartphone arose due to the confluence of several factors:
         – Hardware advances leading to better and more intuitive control systems, solving the usability issues of earlier generations, and settling on the current form factor of one big touch screen
         – Improvements in battery life and efficiency leading to more power in smaller form factors
         – Widespread availability of affordable mobile data plans
         – The rise of distribution channels (Apple and Google app stores) allowing apps to be easily and quickly installed and managed on demand
         – Standardisation of the OS layer (iOS for Apple, Android for everyone else) which simplified matters for third party developers and led to an explosion of content that would work reliably cross-device
         – A stealth takeover of the ‘mobile phone’ personal accessory category, causing the public perception of pocket computing devices to gradually morph from a niche accessory for geeks into a must-have item for everyone (we still call them phones, even though phone calls are among their least important jobs now)

         Any fool could see that portable computing devices were going to be big at some point in the future. My old CEO was one. Had he done a bit more critical thinking and looked at some of the barriers to adoption, like the points above, he could have avoided going all-in on the earlier generations that ended up sinking without trace (taking his company with them).

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         1. .Tom June 8, 2026 at 6:07 am

            > we still call them phones, even though phone calls are among their least important jobs now

            Their most important job now is reading NC, ofc.

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   4. Lefty Godot June 7, 2026 at 1:10 pm

      The Road Ahead foresees everyone connecting to the worldwide network via a “set-top box” attached to their TV. A set-top box presumably made by Microsoft. But it took many years before the internet finally became like the worst of TV as all the moguls desired.

      Gates, like other tech optimists of the ‘90s, vastly underestimated the extent to which bad actors would quickly utilize the internet. All they knew about was the Morris Worm and maybe Kevin Mitnick.

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      1. Lefty Godot June 7, 2026 at 11:29 pm

         I should say that when The Road Ahead came out, many pundits and titans of business looked at the internet as more of a prototype of what the thing they called “the information superhighway” might be. The thinking was, “Not very many people have personal computers. But everybody has a television! It will be something that connects to a television, and cable companies will be heavily involved.” It took a couple of years after Mosaic and Netscape Navigator came along before everyone finally realized, “This is it after all!”

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8. ChrisFromGA June 7, 2026 at 9:12 am

   I’m getting really tired of articles like the one in Nature about AI and doctors. There is a reason that states require doctors to be licensed. The government has an interest in people not dropping dead from bad advice or malpractice. There is also the Hippocratic oath. And the human element of, do you want an algorithm telling you that you may have cancer?

   There is an entire ethical and moral dimension to this ridiculous debate that folks like the author of that piece simply ignore.

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   1. Earl June 7, 2026 at 10:38 am

      An issue not unique to AI medicine is accountability or lack there of. Can one sue an internet program’s originator or transmitter for malpractice? Malpractice tort suits have an unintended effect of imposing responsibility on practitioners to ‘exercise due care’ and limiting stretching newer concepts into quackery. The prescription opioid prescribing epidemic is an example of the popularization of quackery. NC previously covered the Feb. 2026 NY jury verdict that was a first award against providers of gender affirming care to a minor. In May there was an Oregon pre-trial settlement for a detransitioner whose breasts were removed as an adult. https://benryan.substack.com/p/detranssitioner-lawsuit-settles-oh Discussed by NC and covered in reports of these cases is the issue of limitations on the time allowed to file suits. An important issue in both these cases is the judicial sealing of the cases and the practice of nondisclosure to obtain settlement. Dr. Marty Makary Trump’s resigned FDA commissioner has written in favor of disclosure in his book “Unaccountable” that calls for more transparency in medicine as a way to improve care.

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      1. ChrisFromGA June 7, 2026 at 11:32 am

         Can one sue an internet program’s originator or transmitter for malpractice?

         I’ve thought a little bit about this issue and conclude that the best approach might be to always hold the person accountable for their actions, regardless of the tool used. We don’t hold the scalpel maker accountable when a surgeon botches a surgery.

         The situation to avoid is where the doctor points the finger at the AI, and the Sam Altmans of the world point the finger back at the doctor. Altman can also bribe Congress to pass laws that insulate the AI industry from lawsuits. Then it becomes a contest of who has the best lawyers, and Altman’s billions will probably win. But always holding the human accountable has the side effect of making them face the consequences of using shoddy AI as a replacement for human judgment. A few million dollar verdicts will hopefully convince them to never use it again.

         I may be totally wrong, though. A counter-argument is that much like the opioid crisis, bad actors will keep pushing for profiteering at the expense of patient outcomes, and real harm will be done. Outright banning AI from any decision-making in medicine would be my preferred solution.

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   2. ISL June 7, 2026 at 11:09 am

      but but but there is so much more profit to be squeezed out of human health – I mean illness. Really the problem is the enshittification of health care to where crappy hallucinating AI seems an advantage to the chronic profit centers (i mean perpetually ill patients).

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   3. In Cold Chud June 7, 2026 at 1:11 pm

      The government has an interest in people not dropping dead from bad advice or malpractice.

      Some people. As fun a fantasy as it is that AI will make healthcare so bad that those of us without it will have better health outcomes, it’s much easier to imagine that it will be AI for lower-echelon PMCs and people in states with more “generous” social programs (“It looks like you have a fever. Press ‘1’ for automated kidney removal.” ), with flesh-and-blood doctors retained for those who can pay, rather like what happened with technology in the classroom.

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   4. Bill Carson June 7, 2026 at 1:51 pm

      I’ve long believed that medicine has long been captured by the so-called standards of care. It’s almost like a recipe book for medicine. Patient’s cholesterol number above a certain threshold? Must prescribe a statin. If you fail to do so and the patient has a heart attack, you could get sued. Don’t worry about side effects (muscle pain, brain fog, fatigue, liver damage, muscle breakdown) because BIG MEDICINE has already calculated that the risks of the side effects are lower than the risks of the heart attack. Patient dies or becomes debilitated of said side effects? No worry—you followed the standards of care.

      (And as an aside, patients are rarely informed about the absolute risks they face. “A Statin will reduce your chance of dying from cardiovascular disease by 15%.” Wow, sign me up. But wait, despite what you may be thinking, this doesn’t mean your risk of dying over the next 5 years goes from 30% to 15%; it means your risk goes from 3.6% to 3%. So you already had a 96.4% chance of NOT DYING, but now you’ve got a 97% chance of not dying. Yippee! But you also have a pretty good chance of experiencing side effects. Oh don’t worry—it’s a very low chance you’ll have a MAJOR SIDE EFFECT, but we’re not actually going to study the instances of minor side effects.)

      (As a second aside, I did a few Google inquiries in writing this comment. Did you know that Google sucks now? But more concerning than shear quality is the slant of the search results you do get to see. All appear to support the position of statin manufacturers. SHOCKING, I KNOW!!)

      This message is brought to you by the makers of Soylent Green: the new miracle food made from high energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world.

      Reply ↓
9. Steve H. June 7, 2026 at 9:30 am

   > Solving Feynman’s Formula for Eating Well, Parking Your Car, and Finding a Mate Nautilus

   Short explainers from their previous book:

   When To Quit (According to Computer Science)
   When To Try New Things (According to Computer Science)

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10. leaf June 7, 2026 at 9:33 am

    https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116703094991947376

    What stage of dementia or narcissism does somebody have to be to unironically post something like this about themselves? I don’t even think your run of the mill tinpot republic military dictator would be shameless enough to do something like this.

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11. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 9:37 am

    “Lebanese general among three soldiers killed in Israeli attack on car”

    What was that they were saying about using Lebanese army units to separate the Israelis from Hezbollah in “pilot zones” the other day? The Israelis attack the Lebanese army as often as they do United Nations troops using the doctrine of kill anything that moves.

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    1. vao June 7, 2026 at 1:09 pm

       See my comment above. There may well be method in the Israeli strike against that Lebanese general.

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12. TimH June 7, 2026 at 9:44 am

    Colombia slams US election interference after Trump endorses presidential candida

    Rather unfortunate two letters missing at the end, or TMI.

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    1. Expat2uruguay June 7, 2026 at 12:13 pm

       Oh yes, this is hilarious. Candida is a fungus that causes thrush, diaper rash, and vaginal yeast infections.

       It’s not that surprising that Trump would endorse such a blight

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13. tyaresun June 7, 2026 at 9:45 am

    On CO2 helping India’s rice and wheat production:
    https://skepticalscience.com/co2-is-plant-food-too-simple.html

    Photosynthesis comes in a few different flavors, two of which are C3 and C4. Together C3 and C4 photosynthesis make up almost all of modern agriculture, with wheat and rice being examples of C3 crops while corn and sugarcane are C4. The distinction deals mainly with the specific enzyme that is used to collect CO2 for the process of photosynthesis, with C3 directly relying on the enzyme RuBisCO. C4 plants also use RuBisCO, but unlike C3 plants, they first collect CO2 with the enzyme PEP-carboxylase in the mesophyll cell prior to pumping it to RuBisCO

    Reply ↓
    1. vao June 7, 2026 at 1:21 pm

       The author belongs to a think-tank whose main message seems to be that CO2 is good and its negative climatic effects are speculative and exaggerated.

       Reply ↓
14. TimH June 7, 2026 at 9:50 am

    Re the Meta employee keylogging: I bet they’re using the data to create a database of typing signatures, just like the good old days of morse code tapping.

    Reply ↓
15. ChatET June 7, 2026 at 9:50 am

    What a joke, bringing back supply side economics. Art Laffer and his cocktail napkin must be laughing their asses off. The theory was always about giving the rich more money.

    Reply ↓
    1. chuck roast June 7, 2026 at 10:32 am

       I kept waiting for the guy to mention Thames Water.

       Reply ↓
16. Ann June 7, 2026 at 10:09 am

    Iran fires missiles at Gulf after US targets Iranian radar sites

    https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2026/6/6/us-intercepts-iranian-attacks-as-israel-continues-to-bomb-lebanon

    Israeli military says it intercepted two projectiles that crossed from Lebanon

    https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-military-says-it-intercepted-two-projectiles-that-crossed-lebanon-2026-06-07/

    Reply ↓
    1. ISL June 7, 2026 at 11:12 am

       Actually Israel says they intercepted all missiles ever and if anyone says that damage was done they will be silenced in one of its torture hells permanently. Fifth level of hell for jews, ninth level of hell for palestinians and arabs. Not sure where they throw the christian talkers.

       Reply ↓
17. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 10:17 am

    “As Russia and Ukraine press drone war, NATO finds itself caught in crossfire”

    I don’t know what those NATO nations expected. They let Ukrainian drones overfly their territory with their blessings and when those drones hit those very same NATO nations, all they can do is blame Russia. Every. Single. Time. This whole issue has already caused one government to fall and all you need is for a Ukrainian drone to cause a mass casualty event to lead to chaos politically. Will those NATO countries have to start sounding air raid warnings as they let the latest wave of Ukrainian drones to fly overhead? From my seat, this action definitely makes them a party to this war which may not end well for them.

    Reply ↓
18. Mikel June 7, 2026 at 10:19 am

    Presenting an addendum to Michael H.’s post from yesterday (maybe his spirit animal in some respects):

    https://worldlinesletter.substack.com/p/where-has-all-the-class-analysis/

    From the opening:
    “…I want to step back from the immediate debates and identify some of the analytical tendencies that have come to dominate the multipolar and anti‑imperialist media space. I greatly admire the diligent work of many of the analysts I will reference indirectly here. Their research is rigorous, their commitment is genuine, and they have done more than most to expose the crimes of the US‑led empire. But there is a persistent pattern of argumentation that, I believe, rests on a series of strawmen and produces a mutual misunderstanding between debating “sides.” My goal is not to attack individuals but to interrogate the underlying logic…”

    Reply ↓
19. Sam F June 7, 2026 at 10:19 am

    The article should emphasize the two major causes of US-Russia rivalry, long before communism and long after the dissolution of the USSR: (1) British invention of Russophobia to rationalize aggression; and (2) US MIC use of Russophobia after 1991 to rationalize aggression.

    (1) No battles occurred between British and Russian troops in Afghanistan, but in 1839 Britain used the pretense that a small hostage-rescue operation by Russia there threatened India, to rationalize its invasion to support land claims of Sikh allies against Afghan warlords. The warlords massacred all 16,000 British troops except for one survivor. In 1855 after weakening of the Ottoman empire, Russia and Britain contended for Crimea, where Britain was seen as an imperial aggressor on the boundary of Russia, as in Ukraine today.

    (2) After the 1989-91 dissolution of the USSR, NATO had little value except as a transitional stabilizing deterrent, but instead was expanded to serve the US MIC, with unsupported claims against Russia to preserve the distant monster as the rationale.

    Reply ↓
20. Ann June 7, 2026 at 10:51 am

    Cuba to suspend Visa and Mastercard transactions, citing US sanctions

    https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/cuba-suspend-visa-mastercard-transactions-citing-us-sanctions-2026-06-03/

    Trump drags feet on drone deal with Ukraine, mystifying experts

    https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5911039-trump-drone-deal-ukraine/

    Pakistan interior minister meets Iranian FM as Islamabad steps up US-Iran mediation

    https://www.arabnews.com/node/2646268/middle-east

    One killed, several wounded in suspected terror attack in central Israel

    https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/07/middleeast/israel-shooting-attack-intl

    Albania Freezes Assets in Kushner Resort Probe

    https://www.occrp.org/en/news/albania-freezes-assets-in-kushner-resort-probe

    Russia’s crude oil exports reached an average of 3.46 million barrels a day last month, higher than at any point since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine

    https://www.semafor.com/article/06/04/2026/russias-oil-exports-hit-wartime-high

    Reply ↓
21. Rui June 7, 2026 at 10:52 am

    “India’s Record Crops Counter Food, Warming Alarmism”

    This article is standard denial of the impacts of climate change, written by a member of a Koch Brothers funded think thank fully dedicated to denying the impacts of climate change. The CO2 Coalition founder William Happer was tapped to lead the Trump “Presidential Committee on Climate Security”.

    It’s a misinformation article.

    Reply ↓
    1. Yalt June 7, 2026 at 12:07 pm

       They aren’t particularly subtle about it.

       The fabricated doomsday scenarios of the climate industrial complex are ludicrous.

       Warmer is better, says the frog.

       Reply ↓
       1. Rui June 7, 2026 at 3:22 pm

          When someone starts bad mouthing the little ice age, alarm bells start ringing as you know ‘warmer’ is great is coming next.

          Reply ↓
22. Ann June 7, 2026 at 11:15 am

    Iran is “Trump’s Vietnam” — and it’s going to get a lot worse

    https://www.salon.com/2026/06/07/iran-is-trumps-vietnam-and-its-going-to-get-a-lot-worse/

    AI CEOs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft set aside their rivalry to warn Congress AI is making it too easy to design and create bioweapons

    https://fortune.com/2026/06/05/openai-anthropic-microsoft-ceos-congress-bioweapon-safeguards

    Reply ↓
23. Roxan June 7, 2026 at 11:18 am

    I would love to smell those perfumes! When I was in New Delhi, I found an ancient street of perfumes, full of tiny shops filled with exotic scents and bottles, like something out of a fantasy novel.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bugs June 7, 2026 at 12:42 pm

       There’s a street off the Chandhni Chowk like that. Wonder if that’s where you were. Delhi is a magical place.

       Reply ↓
24. mrsyk June 7, 2026 at 11:26 am

    How democracy works.
    GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan draws an unusual opponent in Alaska’s primary — and he’s not happy about it, AP.

    Turns out a late entrant to the race also goes by the name “Dan Sullivan”, just a coincidence I’m sure.

    The incumbent is not happy. “Everybody in Alaska knows I’m Dan Sullivan-R. So he’s trying to do that. Why?” the senator said of the other Dan Sullivan. “He’s not an R. He’s purposely trying to trick my constituents to rig the election for Peltola.”

    The first vote is to pare the field of fifteen or so down to four candidates,

    In Alaska’s primary, the top four vote-getters, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the ranked-choice general election.

    I guess this sort of election strategy beats having to take a public stance on an issue or two.

    Reply ↓
    1. ambrit June 7, 2026 at 11:36 am

       I’m surmising that this “election strategy” is taking a “public stance.” Said stance being, “The Public Be D—-d.”

       Reply ↓
25. ambrit June 7, 2026 at 11:33 am

    Enlarging on the meme of “The Five Most…” I would like to see a video, perhaps by the Australien Truth Commission or the Lego Warriors Bund on “The Five Most Expensive (to Buy) Governments.”

    Reply ↓
26. ChrisFromGA June 7, 2026 at 11:40 am

    North Korea calls US push for denuclearization an anachronistic dream:

    https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/07/north-korea-calls-us-push-for-its-denuclearization-anachronistic-dream-00952796

    Yup, cue the Taylor Swift lyrics … we will never, ever, ever, get together again, and there is no going back. Taco had better keep his filthy trap shut. He can’t even get his stinking mitts on the “nuclear dust” in Iran. Fail.

    Reply ↓
    1. mrsyk June 7, 2026 at 12:22 pm

       We Will Not Be Lovers, The Waterboys

       Reply ↓
    2. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 7:47 pm

       Sounds like Trump is just s*** posting again. Or maybe he wants to spoil Xi’s visit to North Korea. The US had an agreement to denuclearize North Korea with them but they reneged on it under the Bush regime. And now that boat has long since sailed.

       Reply ↓
27. Jason Boxman June 7, 2026 at 11:59 am

    ‘How do we know you won’t be the next John Fetterman?’: bruised Democrats weigh how to win back voters

    I gave up reading about the Democrat party. Wished I’d skipped this. My only real takeaway is Democrats think they need to fight for something. And a few candidates are now using profanity. That’s pretty edgy. Wow. I guess we’re really not playing around.

    Someone should explain to the Democrat party grifts like they’re two that not delivering when you’ve got all the leavers of power is a solid demonstration of what the Democrat party is about. If you couldn’t deliver the bacon in two years of trifecta, what are you even about?

    Grift.

    Reply ↓
28. farmboy June 7, 2026 at 12:02 pm

    bartedners!!!! cheekyRosanna Prestia, MBA
    @RosannaInvests
    ·
    Jun 6
    🚨 The “blowout” jobs report that just killed your rate cut? Misleading.

    It was bartenders. 🍺

    70K hospitality hires for the World Cup -> 5x normal. Wall Street saw a hot economy. It was a soccer tournament.

    Back out the one-off and there’s NO blowout -> just trend. Yes, there’s a soccer tournament sitting on top of a trend-line economy. 🤯

    Look under the hood. 🧵

    Reply ↓
    1. ambrit June 7, 2026 at 1:18 pm

       Ouch! Good catch there!
       It’s all narrative until you have to actually plant the seeds.
       I wonder what we would call a “Narrative Crop.”

       Reply ↓
       1. farmboy June 7, 2026 at 1:51 pm

          USDA calls them planting intentions, Russia spring wheat crop plantings down 13%, Aussie crop appears to be headed for a 50% reduction, right now markets don’t care. Cassandra lurking!

          Reply ↓
          1. ambrit June 7, 2026 at 7:04 pm

             The bean counters will be “on top” for as long as there are beans to count. When the actual supply of beans disappears….what will they count, angels dancing on the tops of their pointy heads?
             This could be the end of the ‘Green Revolution.’ The technology didn’t fail, the managerial function did.
             Stay safe.

             Reply ↓
    2. hamstak June 7, 2026 at 2:58 pm

       Not to be conspiratorial, but to be conspiratorial the administration has an incentive to fiddle with the employment figures: rather than price increases being a result of Don & Bibi’s Excellent Persian Adventure, they can be attributed to a smoking hot economy as evidenced by sizzling jobs numbers. This theory relies on the admin having sufficient sway over the reporting party, though.

       Reply ↓
29. ocypode June 7, 2026 at 12:16 pm

    Supposedly True Promise 5 is going to start today. Looks like opening the Strait of Hormuz, diplomatically or otherwise, is to remain definitively a pipe dream.

    Reply ↓
    1. Timmy June 7, 2026 at 1:36 pm

       The very likely resumption of war (in 4 or 5 hours, perhaps about 30 minutes before equity futures open after the Friday bloodbath) and there is nothing on NY Times or Bloomberg at this moment (that I can find). Extraordinary complacency.

       Reply ↓
       1. Yalt June 7, 2026 at 3:32 pm

          Missiles launched at about 3pm EDT. Iran’s not on the Wall Street clock; they can afford to be flexible.

          Reply ↓
    2. DD GE June 7, 2026 at 2:06 pm

       Damn. Thanks for the heads up (hadn’t seen it).
       Hang on to your hats.

       Reply ↓
       1. Polar Socialist June 7, 2026 at 3:37 pm

          I’ve seeing videos of an alleged 5th wave of Iranian missiles leaving towards Occupied Palestine.

          Reply ↓
    3. johnnyme June 7, 2026 at 3:42 pm

       Al Jazeera’s live blog is very active at the moment. It looks like a second round of missiles is inbound.

       Reply ↓
       1. mrsyk June 7, 2026 at 4:09 pm

          Just up on that feed, “Iraq, Syria close airspace”.

          Reply ↓
    4. ChrisFromGA June 7, 2026 at 6:53 pm

       What is Taco going to do now? Looks like Iran and Nutter have him trapped. Pull an all-nighter sh1t posting on Troof Social?

       Go long adderall!

       Reply ↓
30. AG June 7, 2026 at 1:56 pm

    re: Russia

    German (war) reporter Patrik Baab´s interview with Maria Zakharova:

    Engl. AI-dub available
    May 28th
    87 min.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLMUeEhWaEs

    Reply ↓
31. Trees&Trunks June 7, 2026 at 3:18 pm

    For some reason I have zero, an empty emotional space, for this football world cup.
    The Qatar championship at Christmas or something like that made me forget about sort of. The only thing I remember was that Germany were more focussed on promoting gay right, flying a rainbow flag, instead of playing football. They left the championship in shame too.
    But this year: absolutely zero emotions, not even looking forward to the beer to a game.
    Am I or FIFA getting old?

    Reply ↓
    1. curlydan June 7, 2026 at 6:49 pm

       FIFA sucks and got insanely greedy for this World Cup. There are 104 games in 2026 vs 64 in 2022, but the ticket prices are multiples higher. FIFA manufactured false scarcity through staggered “last minute” ticket sales that were largely ignored due to sky-high prices and likely just dumped a lot of stock on the resellers because only they could sell at elevated prices without FIFA being required to give rebates to the people who bought in at high prices.

       An unwelcome experience all around. Eventually, football/soccer fans probably will be drawn in by the tournament’s natural drama, but the onramp preparations by FIFA have been downright depressing.

       Reply ↓
       1. The Rev Kev June 7, 2026 at 7:53 pm

          And just because you brought second tier tickets does not mean that you will be near the action. FIFA has been reclassifying tiers so that you may find yourself in the nose bleed seats instead.

          Reply ↓
    2. Alan Sutton June 7, 2026 at 7:10 pm

       Not old.

       Like me you seem to have concluded that the circuses just won’t distract you any more.

       I still like the bread though.

       Reply ↓
32. Ann June 7, 2026 at 3:53 pm

    Israel targets Hezbollah with strike on Beirut despite ceasefire

    https://www.politico.eu/article/israel-targets-hezbollah-beirut-strike-despite-ceasefire/

    Iran launches missiles at Israel in first since ceasefire

    https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-898660

    Iran fires missiles at northern Israel

    https://www.ynetnews.com/article/h1krksqwmg

    This will be old news by the time it gets through moderation. sorry

    Reply ↓
    1. chris June 7, 2026 at 8:26 pm

       Older news in people’s feeds but still much appreciated. Between giving the NC team a break and catching us up on the state of play, your links, old or not, are welcome.

       It’s unfortunate that we keep reliving the same thing. It seems like US and Israeli and EU leadership have tried nothing and they’re all out of iideas. Given how nasty this repetition will become as the West begins to experience our first taste of scarcity driven supply shocks I’m making use of the time we’ve got before stuff seriously falls apart.

       We’re putting in a garden. We’re putting in a root cellar. We’re putting in a smoke house. The intent is to let some of our neighbors take advantage of these resources too. Hopefully we will all get through what is promising to be a cruel winter.

       Reply ↓
33. lcm June 7, 2026 at 5:10 pm

    Thank you for the two beautiful birds today!

    Reply ↓
34. AG June 7, 2026 at 7:26 pm

    re: Bosnia War 1993

    Cornel West with Charlie Rose

    TC 14:10
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97aRE09tYDk&t=781s

    One comment (on fb where I found the excerpt) says: “Cornel, the first Neocon?”

    Reply ↓
35. AG June 7, 2026 at 7:37 pm

    re: Brazil vs. US

    Why is nobody worried?

    Reply ↓
36. AG June 7, 2026 at 8:08 pm

    re: German militarisation

    Essentially I agree with Aurelien´s latest essay – I hink it is – that conscription in Europe will be difficult to pull off.

    Still, Junge Welt is reporting that recently nationwide allegedly 340k visitors came to 10 places where Bundeswehr was organizing its “Day of the Bundeswehr”.

    Junge Welt daily, short report:
    you have to translate it
    https://archive.is/fJ53I

    Of course visitors eventually mean little.

    I myself as a German elementary school kid about age 10 visited Krauss-Maffai (Krauss Mafia ;-) as the Dad of a friend was working there.

    Being good old Cold War it was natural for German Leopard tanks to race across the test site under the eyes of the audience.

    Many years later I would visit Dayton and the US Air Force base. But it never meant anything beyond stories and legends.

    Reply ↓
    1. chris June 7, 2026 at 8:34 pm

       Pew, Gallup, and other polling organizations have repeatedly asked questions of people in Europe and the notional West about their willingness to defend the homeland. We all score very low, with Spain and Germany typically trading who is the least open to conscription.

       The first such poll I’m aware took place after Russia had annexed Crimea. This latest contains data from after Russia invaded Ukraine proper. I suppose with enough bribes and propaganda anything is possible. But it looks like Europe’s idea of a fight is where someone else does the soldering and dying parts.

       Reply ↓
37. johnnyme June 7, 2026 at 8:10 pm

    Iran strikes headquarters of Kurdish opposition groups in northern Iraq amid tensions with Israel

    Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said early Monday that it had struck the headquarters of Kurdish opposition groups in Iraq’s northern Sulaymaniyah province amid heightened tensions with Israel.

    Reply ↓
38. AG June 7, 2026 at 8:31 pm

    re: Russian aviation

    A big day for Russian aviation: the PD-8 engine for the Superjet received type certification.
    use google-translate
    https://cont.ws/@beavernews/3285989

    Reply ↓
39. playon June 7, 2026 at 9:54 pm

    One of the better AI videos I’ve seen:

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

    Reply ↓