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Links 7/1/2026

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The “real” sin of Sodom Stephen G. Adubato (Micael T)

Scientists Think Neptune and Uranus May Not Be the Ice Giants We Imagined Gizmodo

A massive asteroid slammed into the North Sea and triggered a 330-foot tsunami Science Daily (Kevin W)

The Wrong Man: The Bestselling Author, the Exoneration and the Rape Crisis the Police Ignored ProPublica

IBM Says It Can Fit Nearly 100 Billion Transistors On a Chip ZDNet

Film: How The Last Stage (1948) helps us understand the Nazi holocaust The Communists (Robin K)

How p-hacking built the world’s most expensive safety regime Works in Progress (Micael T)

McMaster researcher’s latest antibiotic discovery offers new way to kill drug-resistant bacteria McMaster News (Robin K)

#COVID-19/Pandemics

Marburg outbreak is reported in Uganda, threatening to complicate Ebola response in region STAT

Persistent Cerebral 18-FDG PET Changes in Patients With Long COVID Presenting With Fatigue and Post Exertional Malaise Journal of Primary Care & Community Health

Climate/Environment

China?

The First Island Chain Is Already Lost Bryon Weichert

The Mirage of China’s Military Edge Foreign Affairs

Chinese breakthrough could make desalinated seawater cheaper than bottled water Independent (Robin K)

Japan

Koreas

South Korea Plans To Train Entire Military As ‘Drone Warriors’ ars technica

International efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons program have failed. Here’s what comes next The Conversation (Kevin W)

South Korea exports in June soar past $100bn for first time on chip demand Nikkei

Southeast Asia

Thai farmers fear water woes from planned LNG plant Mongabay

European Disunion

From Politico’s EU morning newsletter, “And I want a pony” edition:

BREAKING FROM US BIG TECH

EUROGROUP BOSS ON AN AI MISSION: Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis wants the informal group of Eurozone finance ministers to sharpen its focus on technology and stop aping Silicon Valley….

So what? The Eurogroup has been dealing with sovereign debt crises, banking reforms and digital currencies since it was established in 1998. But as Europe grapples to assert its autonomy from American Big Tech, Pierrakakis wants finance ministers to be part of the discussion on AI and new technologies…

Eurogroup look-ahead: During the next gathering of eurozone finance ministers next week, officials are set to discuss the consequences of new AI models for European banks, such as Anthropic’s Mythos, with Mistral CEO Arthur Mensch.

France blames US for deadly heatwave Telegraph (Li). This is so Torygraph….

PATRICK LAWRENCE: Heat Waves, Brain Waves ConsortiumNews

Paris funeral homes overwhelmed after record heatwave Agence France-Presse

Old Blighty

Ritter’s Rant 093: No More Special Relationship Scott Ritter

Burnham left with £4.7bn bill for Starmer’s new defence investment plan Guardian (Kevin W)

Fruit farmers call for action as extreme heat threatens production Business Green

Israel and the Resistance

Congress blocks Massie-Khanna effort to kill US-Israel integration Responsible Statescraft (guurst, Kevin W)

Hannah Arendt and the creation of Israel Pearls & Irritations. Important.

Lebanon’s Israel framework deal draws broad opposition but little appetite for confrontation Middle East Eye

Situation Report: Pakistan’s Troops in Saudi Arabia Robert Pape

US Treasury chief says only China buying Iranian oil as others wary of sanctions risk Anadolu Agency

US envoys in Doha to meet mediators but not Iranians, Qatar says BBC (Kevin W)

Washington Must Abandon the Iran Obsession Daniel Larison

New Not-So-Cold War

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

NATO’s New Drone/Psyop Scheme And Russia’s Crushing Response: The End No One Mentions/Slavyansk & Kramatorsk: The Final Battle for Donbas Has Begun Mark Sleboda

Ukraine’s Desperate Propaganda Campaign While Russia Advances along the Entire Front Sonar 21 (Kevin W)

Ukraine’s battered energy grid braces for ‘intense heat’ as extreme temperatures head east Euronews

Col Douglas Macgregor: The Problem Facing Putin Right Now Daniel Davis, YouTube

Manufacturing Dread: How Western Submarines and a Compliant Press Terrified Cold War Sweden Pelle Taylor (Chuck L)

Is Russia The New “Christ Of Nations”? Andrew Korybko

Imperial Collapse Watch

Don’t Expect Respect Aurelien. Important. Here in my coastal town in Thailand, missionaries (oddly all the ones I have met are women, even if they are married) do very important charity for poor Thais. One provides regular meals to keep families from having to turn children over to orphanages, what amounts to day care that includes teaching reading, and raising funds for books and uniforms so they can go to school. Another goes to the border with Myanmar, where the communities have many refugees, and give them plus poor locals food, blankets (it gets cold there) and some medical services (they have a mini-van with supplies and a doctor and a nurse or two). The medical services are more important to the refugees than the Thais since Thailand goes have a very cheap state-run medical system (30 baht, or $1, for a doctor visit). These groups have succeeded in getting retirees (mainly men) to provide financial and sometimes operational support. Thailand also has a very good university (IIRC free tuition) for low income students with a very competitive screening process. A friend taught there and said the kids were fantastic. But in the US, we have gutted institutions like the City College of New York, which had been a track for children from low-income families to achieve elite status (CCNY has produced 10 Nobel laureates).

Information Space Has Become the Decisive Battleground of 21st-Century Conflict Global Geopolitics

Pope at Consistory Opening Mass: War is never blessed by God Vatican News

Trump 2.0

Trump made more than $1bn from crypto in first year back in office BBC

MAHA is breaking up with Trump. Now what? Vox

Growing Old With Donald Trump Tom Engelhardt

Fed

Is Kevin Warsh as Bad a Central Banker as He Seems? Perhaps…: TUESDAY MACRO Brad DeLong

Supremes

Supreme Court Backs Birthright Citizenship in Blow to Trump Bloomberg. Lead story in the Middle East edition.

US Supreme Court Rules Geofence Warrants Require Constitutional Privacy Protections Guardian

Supreme Court upholds state transgender sports bans NBC

Supreme Court backs GOP challenge to campaign finance law The Hill

Three Thoughts Heading into the Last Decision Day of the Term Steve Vladeck

Economy

Grilling Burgers on the 4th? Get Ready to Pay Up Wall Street Journal

AI

The AI Industry Is Losing Ed Zitron

County With 37 Data Centers Asks Schools To ‘Conserve Electricity’404 Media

Ex-Governors, Big Tech Launch Coalition To Help Workers ‘Navigate the AI Economy’ New York Times, Kill me now.

Locking Down Autonomy John Robb (Micael T)

Ford’s AI Hiccups Lead Carmaker to Rehire ‘Gray Beard’ Engineers Bloomberg

Microsoft Slammed for Building Copyright-Infringing Supercomputer for OpenAI in New Court Filing ars technica

The Uninvited Meeting Guest Is an AI Notetaker Bloomberg (Micael T). I have told my few remaining US doctors absolutely no recording of my sessions with them. This article will strengthen that case. From the part of the story not archived:

Month after month, Rosenberg has reminded the group’s members that what happens on Zoom is supposed to stay on Zoom. AI notetakers — those now ubiquitous tools that automatically record every word of every meeting and turn those notes into easily shareable transcripts and summaries — are not invited. Yet month after month, there they are, occupying empty squares on the screen, occasionally joining the meetings even when the human beings they belong to don’t.

Rosenberg starts most sessions by feverishly kicking them out. But that only goes so far, given that many tools, like Granola, record silently from users’ desktops, never announcing their presence. “They have infiltrated the system,” says Rosenberg, founder of the Good Advice Co., a communications and marketing firm. “But I think the etiquette has not yet been dictated.”

The Bezzle

Four days to make victims fall in love: How global scammers use US tech to fleece people Channel News Asia

a href=”https://www.404media.co/how-i-bought-a-private-jet-by-selling-10-subscriptions-to-404-media/?ref=daily-stories-newsletter” rel=”nofollow”>How I Bought a Private Jet By Selling $10 Subscriptions to 404 Media 404 Media

Guillotine Watch

What do you get for the world’s richest man? A wildlife refuge. Caleb Ecarma

Class Warfare

The Metaphysics of Woke Yoshi Matsumoto (Micael T)

Hershey’s Chocolate Substitute Exposes Capitalism’s Global Theft Of Cocoa And Labor Egberto

Antidote du jour (retaj):

And a bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here

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3 comments

  1. upstater

    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.

    Reply ↓
    1. Randall Flagg

      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

      Reply ↓
  2. The Rev Kev

    “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.

    Reply ↓

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