Links 7/1/2026

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1. upstater July 1, 2026 at 7:14 am

   Now the US is taking chips from the automotive industry and pipe from fracking to build weapons. What next, stripping washing machines?

   Defense startups raid auto and fracking sectors for parts to speed weapons output

   WASHINGTON, July 1 (Reuters) – Defense tech startups are repurposing automotive chips and pipes used in fracking — while copying production methods from drugmakers — in an effort to deliver weapons to the Pentagon faster and at lower cost.

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   1. Randall Flagg July 1, 2026 at 7:55 am

      Hey, it worked for Russia didn’t it? Remember at the start of Russia’s “unprovoked full scale invasion” of Ukraine all those articles in Western media claiming Russia was stripping chips out of washing machines for missles?
      And wasn’t Putin supposed to be dead from cancer by now?
      Sarc off

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   2. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 8:28 am

      Any word on the development by those defense startups of AI-powered shovels to counter Russian shovels?

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      1. ambrit July 1, 2026 at 8:51 am

         Was that a sly dig at Defense contractors?
         I was going to make a comment about tranches of trenches, but it didn’t meet my understandably low standards.

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   3. WobblyTelomeres July 1, 2026 at 8:48 am

      They are using non-hardened FPGAs.. FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) are commonly used when the quantities (of circuit boards) being manufactured don’t economically justify spinning a custom chip. So if you have a bunch of custom inputs and/or outputs (goesintas and goesouttas) and can get by with a 16 or 32-bit not-blazingly-fast processor, the usual way to develop a working prototype is to use FPGAs and when the quantities required go up, spin a custom chip from the VHDL, or description language. Whole industries are set up for this transition.

      By non-hardened, the non-military/space-rated chips don’t contain special radiation hardened circuits which are able to survive high radiation environments (like those encountered during a nuclear engagement or solar storm). They do this through various means (shielding, use of gallium/sapphire, copious triple-modular-redundancy, etc.). All of which cost a pretty penny.

      So, yeah, they use FPGAs (and their little siblings, CPLDs) in washing machines and virtually any other complex system of inputs and outputs that need some custom handling (ex. a highly specific fast fourier transform, or FFT, on an input or, perhaps, a motor controller and slew of sensors (buttons, knobs, moisture sensors) in a washing machine.

      Used as a pejorative (“dishwasher chips”) only displays the ignorance of the speaker.

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2. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 7:21 am

   “US Treasury chief says only China buying Iranian oil as others wary of sanctions risk”

   Scott Bessent may be getting his hopes up here thinking that this will force to make major concessions in the negotiations. But China is a big enough market so that Iran only needs to sell their oil to China. Iran might want to remember how in negotiations that the US will promise trade sanction relief but there is nothing to say that the US may not reimpose them the following month. Something like that happened under Obama after Iran signed the JCPOA deal.

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   1. jsn July 1, 2026 at 10:59 am

      IIRC, I believe China has started reselling oil.

      Might as well profit from helping more nations buffer the cliff the US desperately wants to go over!

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3. Tito B July 1, 2026 at 7:59 am

   The “second bonus” of the horse protecting its owner during an earthquake is apparently an AI fake:

   https://factual.afp.com/doc.afp.com.B8UN3KE

   (“El video de un caballo “protegiendo” a su dueña durante un terremoto fue hecho con IA”)

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   1. Yves Smith Post authorJuly 1, 2026 at 8:36 am

      I will remove it and find another.

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4. Moo Cows Rule July 1, 2026 at 8:08 am

   Student Loans

   The replies in that student loan thread are brutal. I don’t know their individual situations but I think it’s indicitive of the transition away from communities and toward the hyper-individualistic bootstrap-yourself mentality of the US. This view ignores the consequences of anything outside of localized bubbles.

   What happens to society, or even local communities, when there are no more nurses? No more physical therapists? No more occupational therapists? No more speech pathologists? No more social workers? No more school teachers? No more veterinarians?

   These are all professions where the cost of the education, annual credentialing, and continuing education are not commiserate with the wages. Yet, I would argue that these and similar professions are vital – just look at the need for social workers and therapists with aging populations.

   I don’t know what the answer is but, ignoring the financial implications of millions of borrowers payments increasing 4x, it can’t be more bootstrap mentality.

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   1. ambrit July 1, 2026 at 8:53 am

      It falls in line with Neoliberal Rule #2: Go die.

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      1. Joe Renter July 1, 2026 at 12:48 pm

         Or perhaps get a shared values visa to Russia and get the hell out of this failed state. If I was 20 years younger it would be my plan.

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   2. In Cold Chud July 1, 2026 at 1:11 pm

      Your comment made me curious, so I went to XCancel to see for myself. It’s not just that tweet. Every tweet from this account has the same replies. While some of the tweets have implications that are debatable, the mixture of rage and bad faith in the replies is something to see.

      This might be implicit in what you write, but there is probably nothing more threatening to Americans’ sense of self than the proposition that one owes one’s success to others, and to chance, and that, however necessary individual grit etc. was to it, it was not and would never have been sufficient. And there is no greater evidence of this proposition than the existence of people who did everything, if not right, then at least as well as you, and still failed.

      A rhetorical containment structure must be maintained around these people, and these replies are part of that.

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5. flora July 1, 2026 at 8:14 am

   re: antidote

   “How doth the little busy bee
   Improve each shining hour,
   And gather honey all the day
   From every opening flower!”

   -Issac Watts

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   1. ambrit July 1, 2026 at 9:01 am

      I am partial to Lewis Carrols version.

      “How doth the little crocodile,”
      “Improve his shining tail,”
      “And pour the waters of the Nile”
      “On every golden scale!”

      “How cheerfully he seems to grin,”
      “How neatly spreads his claws,”
      “And welcomes little fishes in”
      “With gently smiling jaws!”

      The kinder gentler whip hand is ready to ‘serve’ you!

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6. flora July 1, 2026 at 8:21 am

   re: Japan

   Google translate from the Japanese script:

   [World’s First] A bladeless wind turbine has been developed. When a cylindrical pillar is erected, the wind creates vortices that cause the pillar to sway back and forth through resonance; a generator at the base then converts this vibration into electricity. With no moving parts in contact, the system eliminates bird collisions and noise, and plans are underway to launch a large-scale 100 MW demonstration unit by 2026.

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   1. PlutoniumKun July 1, 2026 at 8:48 am

      It looks interesting, but its certainly not the worlds first – various companies around the world have been working on these for quite a long time, with the Spanish seemingly in the lead – they’ve had test turbines up for a few years.

      I doubt they would be commercial for grid scale electricity, although its hard to find any concrete figures for how big they would have to be to generate meaningful power. But they do seem to have potential for small scale generators, such as on houses or even (as one company is working on), as additions to street lighting poles.

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   2. jefemt July 1, 2026 at 10:10 am

      I recall wire fencing to do the same thing. The wind in the high plains can vibrate wire fence.

      Lotta possibilities, but energy-dense portable crude oil- mid-eastern or not, is The Sh*t.

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7. flora July 1, 2026 at 8:31 am

   re: the bezzle

   How I Bought a Private Jet By Selling $10 Subscriptions to 404 Media – 404 Media

   Guillotine Watch

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   1. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 8:36 am

      I heard about a businessman who bought himself a private jet and thought it a great investment. Until the first time the pilot brought him the bill after the plane had been loaded up with fuel. :)

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8. AG July 1, 2026 at 8:41 am

   re: British anti-terrorism police detain prominent US human rights attorney Dan Kovalik

   important

   Craig Murray new post:

   “(…)
   I publish below in full the Note we have submitted to Court today to re-establish the separate Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. Not only is the state doubling down on prosecution of pro-Palestine activists, a new National Security State Threats Bill is being fast tracked through parliament to extend the attack on free speech.

   Under this bill receiving a benefit including “information” from a state entity designated as “hostile” by the Home Secretary will be a crime bringing up to 14 years in prison. So publishing casualty figures from Iranian sources, for example, will be terrorism. Publishing information about Ukrainian attacks on Russia will be illegal.
   (…)”
   Palestine Action Proscription: We Fight Back
   https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2026/07/palestine-action-proscription-we-fight-back/

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   1. Es s Ce Tera July 1, 2026 at 9:28 am

      How long before reading NC is considered a crime, given it seems to meet the same definition (sometimes)?

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9. JMH July 1, 2026 at 9:06 am

   The birthright citizenship decision, in a sane world, would have been 9-0. The campaign finance decision, as I see it, legalized the sale of political office to the highest bidder.

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10. ChrisFromGA July 1, 2026 at 9:19 am

    File under GOP Clown Car:

    “Milk Carton” Mike Johnson loses control of his caucus, as a dozen angry defectors tank vote on rule to proceed to debate, send Congress running for the Fourth of July recess:

    https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2026/07/01/congress/house-floor-freezes-over-00983504

    Johnson can go pound sand until July 13!

    With just eight legislative days on the calendar between now and Congress’ August recess, and 16 days more between then and the November elections, Johnson’s optimism faces the brutal reality of a short timeline.

    My clown world rule of thumb: No matter how incompetent the GOP leadership is, they can always get more incompetent.

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11. Kristiina July 1, 2026 at 9:21 am

    Russia is curbing fertiliser exports, at least to Finland. The new train freight price increases by Russia puts the Finnish company importing the fertiliser out of business. https://yle.fi/a/74-20234361

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    1. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 9:27 am

       And in completely unrelated news from a coupla days ago-

       ‘Finnish President Alexander Stubb has signed amendments to the Nuclear Energy Act allowing nuclear weapons to be deployed on the country’s territory. The Nordic nation’s parliament supported lifting the long-standing ban earlier this month.’

       https://www.rt.com/news/642294-finnish-lift-nuclear-arms-ban/

       Bonus points because Finland has now made itself a nuclear target. That’s a heckuva job, Stubb.

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12. Tom Stone July 1, 2026 at 9:36 am

    I see the old Men at the Supreme Court want an autocracy, a King, rather than a President.
    It’s much neater than having a Republic, which is inherently messy.
    And with the population management tools perfected in Gaza the plebes can be kept in line.
    Choosing the right Autocrat is important, finding one that is both pliant and sufficiently competent is not easy, See VV Putin as one example.
    Autocracies do tend to become more rigid and brutal over time, at a time when climate change is going to require flexibility and cooperation on a vast scale to avoid human extinction this might not be the optimal approach.

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    1. JP July 1, 2026 at 10:12 am

       Although extinction is not a bad thing you under estimate human tenacity.

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13. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 9:36 am

    “County With 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to ‘Conserve Electricity’”

    Of course there is a solution. That County could make a huge effort to have those schools and public building powered by solar power and the like. Those data centers could help subsidize the cost as well as it would be in their own self interest to do so. But I doubt that it will happen. The article also said ‘It also hosts 37 data centers and there are plans to build 17 more, including plans to convert hundreds of acres of Civil War battlefields into data centers’ so the situation is only going t get worse. Are they going to totally cut the power to schools on high load days? Use smart meters to cut their AC on hot days? Put the school on an annual energy budget?

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    1. vao July 1, 2026 at 9:56 am

       A solution would be for those schools to limit or suppress the utilization of tablets and computers running AI-enriched educational software. Less electricity consumed by those electronic devices, and less computing load on electricity-gobbling data centres — win-win!

       Somehow I doubt that this suggestion would be received favourably by the politicians in Virginia…

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14. antidlc July 1, 2026 at 10:01 am

    https://healthcareuncovered.substack.com/p/unitedhealth-has-a-bank-now-washington
    UnitedHealth Has a Bank. Now Washington Wants More Insurers to Act Like One.

    The administrations new ACA rules encourage health insurers to offer loans for medical bills instead of addressing the soaring out-of-pocket costs driving Americans into debt.

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    1. jefemt July 1, 2026 at 10:14 am

       Self-licking Ice Cream Cone. Verrrrry SLICC. Today’s flavor? Medicinal Debt!

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       1. hunkerdown July 1, 2026 at 11:23 am

          Next: Food is a recreational debt and will be banned because of moral hazard.

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15. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 10:11 am

    “The Mirage of China’s Military Edge”

    Just read the full piece. he has a lot of good info on the Chinese military but he appears to be obsessed by the idea of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. If anything, he is much more obsessed with his idea than the Chinese have ever been. I mean, the word ‘Taiwan’ appears 121 times in this article. As the writer was once the Commander in Chief of U.S. Pacific Command, you have to wonder if this is his obsession or it is a general one in naval circles. The Chinese could wave this issue in front of the west while in the background they would be building up fleet capabilities.

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    1. MRLost July 1, 2026 at 11:23 am

       Taiwanese independence makes sense exactly like Texas independence.

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16. TomDority July 1, 2026 at 10:27 am

    IBM Says It Can Fit Nearly 100 Billion Transistors On a Chip ZDNet.
    How many AI angels can fit on the head of an AI pin.
    With the continued improvement of energy use and scaling these chips ought to reduce the amount of energy use at these Data centers.
    So all this private investment in data center energy demands is just a simple way to optimize monopoly control over the energy grid…. I can see the improvements would go a long way to charge individual rates based on many factors….like political affiliation, legislative actions, carrying to little a debt burden, infrastructure allocations and, with the data component… enabling digital governing by being the toll-taker/permission-authority for every transaction or movement.
    These will be those AI angels

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17. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 10:45 am

    “Euroclear files lawsuit against Bank of Russia to block 18.2 trln ruble recovery — Echo”

    Did they do this because they have already spent that money and don’t have it there to pay back?

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18. PlutoniumKun July 1, 2026 at 10:51 am

    Don’t Expect Respect Aurelien. Important.

    The impact of missionaries, and those influenced by missionaries, in guiding the direction of countries via education and support services, has always been underestimated and probably understudied. Its even wider if you broaden the definition of missionaries. As an example, it was the influence of John Cardinal McCloskey and Archbishop John Hughes who broke the WASP stranglehold on ‘public’ education in New York which was foundational in creating a more equitable education system in the US, at least as far as poorer catholic immigrants were concerned. Irish missionaries had learned from the example in Ireland where the catholic church was instrumental in creating a parallel education structure to the official British system, and essentially created from scratch an educated catholic middle and upper middle class. For all the malignity of the system, its the one reason why Ireland was the first country to be able to release itself from that particular variety of colonialism.

    The influence in Asia is far more mixed. Shusako Endo’s book Silence is a very powerful evocation of why catholic missionaries were so eagerly created by the poor of Japan, and even more vigorously opposed by elites, a curious inversion of the situation in much of Europe. The influence of various strains of Christian missionary work in South Korea in the latter part of the 20th Century is fundamental to understanding that countries politics. Not least in that US Christian missionaries have seeded some of the most conservative elements while catholic converts have generally been liberals.

    One of the curiosities of the influence of catholic missionaries in much of Asia and Africa, in particular Muslim countries, is that they are seen as a bridge between local conservativism without being overtly ‘modern’. It was common in much of Central Asia for better off families in parts of Central Asia to send their daughters to Catholic schools as they were seen as giving a high quality education while still retaining an element of conservativism. I’ve more than once encountered women from Pakistan with distinct Irish accents thanks to ‘the nuns’.

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19. The Rev Kev July 1, 2026 at 10:55 am

    “How p-hacking built the world’s most expensive safety regime”

    If what he writes is true, then how come there are still abandoned zones in Chernobyl and Fukushima? The Japanese did let people back to Fukushima but only elderly people i.e. they had nothing to lose. This whole article strikes me as the same sort of special pleading that went on to say that there was no evidence that smoking was bad for you.

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    1. flora July 1, 2026 at 12:07 pm

       Most expensive safety system = the most expensive safety system.

       It does not necessarily = the most safe/reliable safety system. / ;)

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    2. vao July 1, 2026 at 12:35 pm

       There were studies done about the health consequences of Chernobyl, and the consequences of long-term irradiation were not as benign as the authors of that post argue.

       Since the topic is the low-dosis exposition to radioactive material on the long-term, what happens when living near an atomic power-plant is relevant. Evidence is partial, but several European studies (France, Germany, UK, Switzerland, Belgium) exhibit a commonality: statistically significant higher rates of infantile leukemia.

       Another investigation did not find any relation between living near a nuclear site and various forms of cancer — except for those people living near a nuclear reprocessing plant, where the incidence of bladder cancer was significantly higher (though the cause — radiation or emission of toxic chemical substances — is unclear).

       The situation is clearer for those working in nuclear sites: studies confirm statistically significant higher rates of various cancers for employees who are subject to cumulative low doses of radiation — excluding accidents or negligence that result in workers being showered with massive levels of radiation.

       From what I have read, the surroundings (ground, air, water) of sites where uranium is mined, where fissile material is produced, reprocessed, or conditioned, are generally much more polluted with radioactive material. I saw a documentary a long time ago about people living in a French village near a site dealing with the production of atomic weapons who exhibited a suspiciously high rate of various forms of cancer.

       So no, being repeatedly exposed to low doses of radiation is definitely not good for you — a single dose is not a problem, but radiation has a very detrimental cumulative effect.

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    3. Jacktish July 1, 2026 at 12:49 pm

       Not sure if it directly addresses specifically what’s in the article, but I remember after the 3 Mile Island disaster, The Nation had an article where the writer wanted to see if there were any effects in the hospitals surrounding the area. Turns out that birth/miscarriage data that was normally compiled and released by the feds were all of a sudden not available. So he determined where the prevailing winds were headed during the radiation release and a month or so later went to visit all the hospitals within maybe 100 miles from 3 Mile Island in that direction (my memory is not sure of the exact distance). And he found significantly higher rates of still births and miscarriages in that area.

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20. Geo July 1, 2026 at 11:39 am

    Correct McMaster News “antibiotic” link:
    https://news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-researcher-gerry-wrights-latest-antibiotic-discovery-manikomycin-offers-new-way-to-kill-drug-resistant-bacteria/

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    1. Yves Smith Post authorJuly 1, 2026 at 12:48 pm

       Sorry to be late to fix this…

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21. Jason Boxman July 1, 2026 at 11:42 am

    LOL, ChatGPT notified me today that I can now hookup my bank accounts to OpenAI to help understand my finances. LOL, no.

    But I guess using people’s financial data for peddling ads for credit cards and personal loans is a time honed strategy for profit.

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    1. flora July 1, 2026 at 12:08 pm

       OpenAI as scam central? Or troll central? ha!

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22. XXYY July 1, 2026 at 11:45 am

    Thoughtful Man Places Handmade Ramp in Dumpster to Help Stranded Animals Escape Laughing Squid

    Raccoons have a long standing relationship with dumpsters. I was once spending the night at Pinnacles National Monument when I saw a cadre of raccoons lumber across the parking lot, defeat the latch on a bear-proof dumpster there without missing a beat, and gleefully jump inside.

    I also remember reading that the city of Montreal (I think), which has a big raccoon population, put out a costly municipal contract to design curbside trash cans that were raccoon proof. It was something of a fiasco, but also a very entertaining story, since the raccoons quickly learned how to open the first one or two prototypes, and it turned out to be very difficult to find a lock that stymied raccoons but which humans could manage. Evidently there is a fair-sized cognitive overlap between the two species!

    IMO dumpsters should be designed with ramps or something along the lines of this photo. It’s quite common for small animals, attracted by the smell, to get stuck in dumpsters, which seems like a needlessly cruel fate.

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23. Tom Stone July 1, 2026 at 11:48 am

    I wonder how many Oligarch’s recognize that the Supreme’s “Slaughter” decision not only gutted the powers of Congress, it also weakened the power of the “Elites” substantially.
    The “Great Charter” unfortunately gave the plebes some rights and protections, however its primary purpose was to protect the interests of the Oligarch’s against the over reach of the Sovereign.
    Here in the good old USA the “Bill of Rights” and the Electoral College served the same end.
    Protecting the Elites and providing a stable environment in which to shear the sheep.
    That’s gone.
    Imagine, if you will, that Trump is carried off on the Wings of Angels to sit at Jesus’ right hand tomorrow morning and Vance ascends the Throne.
    JD looks around and says to himself “It is good to be the King”.
    The next day he calls in Jeff Bezos for a little one on one, when Jeff walks though the door JD gets up, walks over to him and says “I’m glad you could make it, we need to have a clear understanding”, at which point JD unzips his pants and says “Make me happy or your next stop is Guantanamo”.
    Far fetched?
    I don’t think it is.
    An all powerful “President” unconstrained by the Rule of Law is a Tyrant and a Tyrant’s will is the Law.
    Enjoy the show!

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24. Jon Cloke July 1, 2026 at 12:16 pm

    The horsey video is a big fake, BTW. Anyone notice how the lady with the long blonde hair before the ‘quake’ suddenly gets up with a white cap on?

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25. Frank July 1, 2026 at 12:26 pm

    …funeral homes overwhelmed after record heatwave.
    Here in the US that would be included in the GDP wouldn’t it?

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    1. hunkerdown July 1, 2026 at 2:03 pm

       Under the broken widows fallacy, perhaps!

       Click to Edit – 

       

       Under the broken widows fallacy, perhaps!

       SaveCancelDelete

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26. flora July 1, 2026 at 12:36 pm

    From Jimmy Dore… how to handle a pesky reporter./ ;)

    Thomas Massie Humiliates Fox Reporter Over Gay Pron!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vDphV4bT5I

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