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Links 6/9/2026

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The ‘Steroid Olympics’ Finally Happened And Ironically Clean Athletes Still Won ZME Science (Dr. Kevin)

How Amsterdam is reviving the fine-grained courtyard block Courtyard Urbanist (Micael T)

Thought-Terminating Jargon Bentham’s Bulldog (Micael T)

Consciousness Researchers Are Tripping Commonweal

Air passengers ‘risking lives by grabbing bags and filming in emergencies’ Guardian (resilc). Darwin award futures.

7 Ideas That Should Make You Distrust Your Own Mind Skeptic (Micael T)

Ebola

Climate/Environment

Hidden meltwater found deep in Antarctic coastal waters reveals stronger climate impacts PhysOrg

Warming seas put pressure on North Sea fish populations Environment Journal

China hit by wide-ranging extreme weather events in May Dialogue Earth

Hungry elephants displaced by the climate crisis clash with farmers for food in Zambia: ‘They ate the maize the whole night’ El Pais

Panama Canal imposes new vessel restrictions amid El Niño concerns Independent. The canal is competing with local farmers for water use.

Colorado is now in a statewide drought emergency CPR

Wildfires are reversing America’s progress on ozone pollution, the main ingredient in smog The Conversation

China?

China Triples Nuclear Submarine Production Capacity to Lead the World in Output: Next Generation Ships Shift Power Balance at Sea Military Watch

Chinese troops showcase unmanned systems in joint drills with Mongolia CGTN

China’s Xi vows unwavering support for North Korea’s Kim in rare Pyongyang visit Channel News Asia

Xi and Kim pledge closer ties as North Korea meeting enters second day BBC

US adds Alibaba, BYD and other Chinese tech champions to military company blacklist South China Morning Post (guurst)

Africa

Drone strikes in Tigray kill unspecified number amid fears of renewed conflict Ethiopia Observer

Rights group says drone strike kills 11 in central Sudan market Aljazeera

Algiers has opened a new front against Morocco—and it’s no longer in the Sahara Atalayar

South of the Border

No electricity, no gas, no sleep: Cubans on edge amid endless outages Guardian

Plans to Tap Bolivia’s Vast Mineral Riches Hit by Mass Unrest Bloomberg

European Disunion

European drivers cut back on fuel as energy price shock bites Financial Times

World Insights: EU’s renewed Balkans push reflects deeper security concerns Xinhua

German Chancellor in latest deranged speech claims that Alternative für Deutschland “stands in the tradition” of the Holocaust eugyppius Micael T: “Says the man who stated that Israel is doing the dirty work for us in Iran.”

Double standards and their consequences German Foreign Policy (Micael T)

As soon as poverty figures in Germany are released, the relativists are on hand Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Michael T)

German fishery caught in escalating economic squeeze as marine fuel costs threaten to bankrupt fleets Bastille Post

Old Blighty

Entire submarine fleet protecting UK from nuclear attack ‘unfit for use’ Metro

UK food bills soar as climate crisis hits overseas farmers and vital imports Independent

Zelenskyy hopes Reform UK councils will allow Ukraine flags to be flown again Guardian (Kevin W)

Israel v. The Resistance

Iran war live: Israel bombs Lebanon after Trump warns Netanyahu to stop Aljazeera

37 – that’s how many times Trump has claimed to be close to Iran deal CNN

US congressman demands probe into Israel’s 1967 attack on USS Liberty Aljazeera (Kevin W)

Israel puts Palestinian doctor in solitary confinement after 17 months held without charge Guardian

Who calls the shots? Trump and Netanyahu clash over diverging goals in Middle East war Financial Times

The UAE Is Changing Rhetoric, Not Policy, Toward Iran American Conservative. resilc: “Doubling down with a loser…..”

How do Israelis in the north feel about renewed fighting with Iran? Check out the supermarket Times of Israel

New Not-So-Cold War

NATO Propagandists Again Proclaim That Ukraine Is on the Verge of Winning the War Antiwar.com (resilc)

EU authorizes ships in Mediterranean to detain tankers carrying Russian oil — Kallas TASS (guurst)

From Politico’s morning European newsletter:

SO CLOSE, YET SO FAR: Ukraine’s ambition to move rapidly along the path to EU membership is creating tension between Kyiv, Brussels and some European capitals ahead of the opening next week of a first formal negotiating cluster, according to diplomats and EU officials.

Meeting in the middle: Kyiv and Brussels have publicly hailed the likely start of formal negotiations on June 15 as a breakthrough. But Ukraine is concerned its bid could be “parked” due to political issues, including France’s presidential election. That could push enlargement off the EU agenda. Brussels, meanwhile, is worried about the pace of reforms in Kyiv.

Membership lite: Discussion papers floated by Paris and Berlin, touting “associate membership” for Kyiv and other interim solutions for candidate states, are jangling nerves. “In practice, Ukraine is being offered everything except membership itself,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to the EU Vsevolod Chentsov told Playbook…

Why it’s getting tense: Kyiv wants to open not one but several negotiating clusters before the end of this summer, as a signal to its politicians and war-weary voters that EU membership is a real prospect, not a pipe dream.

Different vantage: Brussels is concerned about disenchantment as a risk factor for Ukraine’s internal reforms. Indeed, progress on passing key laws required to join the EU has slowed in recent months, amid unfilled seats in the Rada, the national parliament, and concerns that some measures wouldn’t secure a majority if put to a vote.

‘They are isolated … they are alone’: Zelenskyy on Russia, Putin’s lies – and fighting back Guardian. Lead story.

Nikol Pashinyan and the Future of Armenia Multipolar Press

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Meta Furious Over Bombshell Smart Glasses Revelation Futurism. Important

Imperial Collapse Watch

Nuclear powers increasing deployment of warheads, SIPRI warns France24

The Navy Has Long Been a Way for the U.S. to Project Power. The Iran War Shows Its Limits. Barron’s. resilc: “$1 trill a year for a garbage military built for 1940s.”

The Virginia-class submarine deal exposes the real purpose of AUKUS Pearls and Irritations (Chuck L)

Trump 2.0

Spy-powers deal is latest Hill casualty of Trump’s impetuous decisionmaking Politico

Immigration

Judge blocks $100k fee for H-1B visas imposed by Trump The Hill

First Somali referee to officiate at World Cup barred from entering US RT (Kevin W)

U.S. launches largest-ever effort to denaturalize citizens accused of fraud CBS (Chuck L)

Our No Longer Free Press

The Rabbit Hole: How the search for one court record became a nationwide movement. Court Watch (Chuck L)

Economy

IMF Chief Warns World Isn’t Ready for Shocks That Are Piling Up Bloomberg

Government rolls out grocery rebate as recession swirls CBC

OPEC+ Approves Another Oil Output Hike for July OilPrice

Texas screwworm cases don’t risk food supply, Brooke Rollins says CNBC. resilc: “noooooooooooooooo problem. Not what I learned helping unload Eid sheep with screw worms as a Bahrain Peace Corps vol…. I still have PTSD from that experience.

Mr. Market Needs a Therapist

Markets face triple threat of Iran war reigniting, AI bubble popping, and Fed rates rising while epic SpaceX IPO could fuel even more chaos Fortune

Inflation threats may finally undo central bank herd mentality Telegraph

AI

The helium squeeze is becoming an AI chip supply risk Startup Fortune

It’s a hurricane warning’: Guardrails around powerful AI models may be too late Politico (Kevin W)

Meta launches $115 million data center job guarantee Axios (Kevin W)

Politicians couldn’t keep kids off social media. They’ll try again with AI. Semafor. resilc: “The whole point of AI is surveillance.”

The Bezzle

It’s Possible That SpaceX Could Collapse Spectacularly Futurism (Paul R)

xAI is looking more like a datacentre REIT than a frontier lab Martin Alderson (Paul R)

Texas Grid Flags Risks As Data Centers, Crypto Sites Fail Voltage Tests Reuters

Guillotine Watch

Convicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried files formal request for Trump pardon CNBC

Class Warfare

Personal loans booming as cost of living drives Australians to borrow record amounts Guardian

https://www.union-bulletin.com/news/national/gen-z-is-more-optimistic-than-boomers-but-less-attached-to-america-poll-finds/article_c4032b9c-e15a-5229-87f8-0dde119c19f2.html Union Bulletin

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus:

A second:

A third:

And a different sort for the finale:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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16 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    “Entire submarine fleet protecting UK from nuclear attack ‘unfit for use'”

    Five subs are stuck in port awaiting maintenance and repairs. There is a sixth sub that has just been commissioned into the fleet but it is not ready for deployment yet. And then there was this-

    ‘The fact that there has not been money invested in dry docks, in the maintenance facilities, in the men required to maintain and repair the submarines, in the spare parts for those submarines is why we have got to this position.’

    It was not that long ago that all of Germany’s boats were stuck in port for maintenance & repairs too. But you still wonder if this was negligence at work by the Royal Navy or maybe those Astute-class subs are just not maintenance friendly. They are not that old either-

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astute-class_submarine

    Reply ↓
    1. vao

      Well, the USA has a similar problem: 11 Years Of Waiting for Repairs: The Navy Has A Nuclear Attack Submarine ‘Trapped in Port’, and America Has 49 Nuclear Attack Submarines And 18 of Them Cannot Leave Port — China Is Building Submarines as Fast as It Can.

      The French were also facing trouble with the number of docks suitable for the maintenance of their nuclear submarines — just one in their major naval base of Toulon to accommodate 5 vessels. They have been busily building two additional docks; the last one is due to be completed only in 2029.

      Investing in infrastructure, maintaining an industrial basis, educating and training people, keeping stocks of spare parts… all unglamorous activities that cost a lot of money (that does not necessarily end in the pocket of major armaments suppliers), but is unavoidable if one wants to maintain a substantial fleet of complex vessels in order. Those four countries failed to do it, they are now paying the price.

      Reply ↓
      1. Skip Intro

        Neoliberalism beats Neoconservatism once again as fantasies of dominance and empire are slapped silly by an invisible hand.

        Reply ↓
  3. vao

    The link “How do Israelis in the north feel about renewed fighting with Iran? Check out the supermarket” points to the article on “7 Ideas That Should Make You Distrust Your Own Mind”.

    The link “Algiers has opened a new front against Morocco—and it’s no longer in the Sahara” returns a “403 forbidden”.

    Reply ↓
      1. vao

        It looks as if the entire http://www.atalayar.com site prevents me from accessing it (tried two different browsers with different configurations on linux, from a European country).

        Thanks for the correct link to the Israeli on-the-ground report. If (if) it is representative, then it means that contrarily to all those vocal Northern Israeli settlers squealing about the situation and opposition politicians claiming that the complete failure of Netanyahu’s offensive is inflicting insufferable hardship on the population, the Israelis are orders of magnitude less affected materially by war than Palestinians, Lebanese, possibly even Iranians, and prior to that Yemenis.

        As long as this holds, Israel will probably be able to endure the conflict for significantly longer than generally assumed; all depends on whether Iran (in synchronization with Hezbollah and Ansarallah) will start striking hard on a much larger scale.

        Reply ↓
            1. vao

              Thanks, the archived version works!

              Alas, the link provided by the Rev Kev returned another “403 forbidden” message.

              Reply ↓
              1. jefemt

                Major Blockage on the 403. Drivers are encouraged to pursue other Routes in their tele commute…

                Reply ↓
  5. The Rev Kev

    ‘Wolf of X
    @WolfofX
    Champale Anderson, a mother of six from North St. Louis, has dedicated years to making sure children in her neighborhood never go hungry. Every school day, she prepares about 100 lunch bags packed with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fruit, juice, cookies, and other snacks for any child who needs one.’

    Hard for kids to learn in a class room when their belly button are slapping against their backbones. Hungry kids are an obscenity wherever it exists.

    Reply ↓
  6. JohnA

    Re They are isolated … they are alone’: Zelenskyy on Russia, Putin’s lies – and fighting back

    The lead interviewer for this puff piece for Zelensky is Luke Harding, who embarrassingly admitted in an interview with Aaron Mate that he was a storyteller [rather than a journalist]. As such, this article can be safely stored as stenographic propaganda rather than any kind of proper facts on the ground investigative journalism.

    And predating his disastrous encounter with Mate by several years, Private Eye wiped the floor with Harding over his plagiarism and fantasies about his time as Guardian correspondent in Moscow. https://archive.is/UUCBD
    and smartly summed up by offguardian https://off-guardian.org/2015/09/09/luke-harding-enemy-of-the-state/

    Reply ↓
  8. The Rev Kev

    “EU authorizes ships in Mediterranean to detain tankers carrying Russian oil — Kallas ”

    Nobody ever accused Kaya Kallas as being a rocket scientist but what she is talking about is blockading Russia’s ships. And that a blockade is actually an act of war. And let’s not even mention that what she wants is illegal under international law and is considered piracy unless it has been authorized by the UN – which it hasn’t. As the EU is running out of oil soon, maybe they are thinking that hijacking Russians oil ships is one way to top themselves up a bit.

    Reply ↓

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