Passersby Can’t Believe Who They Spot Sharing A Picnic Table In Alaska The Dodo
Passenger partly sucked from Ryanair plane during flight DW. doug c: “Boeing 737.”
The “Hobbits” Mysteriously Disappeared 50,000 Years Ago – Scientists Have Revealed What Happened to Their Home SciTech Daily (Chuck L)
The Bayeux Tapestry Explained: Watch an Animated Retelling of the Norman Conquest Open Culture (Kevin W)
How to not be a holier-than-thou convert Stephen Adubato (Micael T)
Is This the End of Booze? Derek Thompson (Micael T)
Study Suggests Ozempic Makes Users Docile, Social Engineers Excited About Applications Armageddon Prose. The site’s brand is fair warning, but the tendency to hyperbole does not make the underlying argument wrong. KLG: “That is an over the top Substack. I clicked through to the article in the journal Crimimology (Wiley) Both authors are at Rutgers and it seems legitimate. I’ll read it this weekend. I would not be surprised if at the margin this is real.”
The Decline of Deviance 2 Adam Mastroianni (Micael T)
Ebola
Africa CDC warns of ‘fastest-growing Ebola outbreak ever’ as DR Congo death toll climbs to 600 France24
Climate/Environment
Massive calving episode in Greenland may foreshadow more rapid ice sheet loss PhysOrg
UK waters hit with extreme heatwave as global sea temperatures reach record levels Guardian
“The Mediterranean marine heat wave has intensified rapidly following repeated heat domes over Europe, with 78.6% of the basin now experiencing marine heat wave conditions. Anomalies up to 5°C. Climate change is driving nearly all of the event: 97.9% of the current marine heat… pic.twitter.com/ZUfm1EiCdt
— Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) July 8, 2026
‘It just feels airless’ – what do the Tour de France riders make of the record-breaking heat? Cycling Weekly
Glacial melt in the Himalayas could alter water chemistry downstream Scroll
Nanoplastics found in Antarctic soils for first time, suggesting long-range atmospheric transport PhysOrg
EXCEPTIONAL HEAT WAVE IN CHINA
Minimums again >30C locally.
17 more records of High Minimums for July, 5 of which are all time records (see below).
Next days extraordinary heat in KOREAS
(possible MINIMUMS up to 30C !). https://t.co/gSgdamMmIe— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) July 10, 2026
‼️ Whopper of a heat dome coming, and that’s no exaggeration! In all aspects: size, longevity, and especially intensity this will be extreme. The heat dome should shatter all-time records for upper level pressure in the Northern Plain States. Actual Temperatures (not heat index)… pic.twitter.com/C3HF7N2nbL
— Jeff Berardelli (@WeatherProf) July 8, 2026
Gray whales are washing up dead in large numbers along the Pacific Coast KTOO
China?
China expands anti-sanctions toolkit, raising risks for foreign firms Aljazeera
Chinese companies use rare earths ban to squeeze out foreign rivals Financial Times
“Eastern Data, Western Compute” is Fake China Talk
Koreas
North Korea says will bolster nuclear force, expand S. Korea spy activities in ‘radical way’ France24
Japan
Japan bond market signals waning faith in inflation, government’s fiscal management Channel News Asia
How Japan’s yen rout could spark a US financial crisis Asia Times
Africa
UN probe finds mass killings, gang rapes by Sudan’s RSF amount to genocide Aljazeera
Less drugs, less care, less food: how aid cuts have hit Uganda’s 2m refugees Guardian
South of the Border
Colombian mercenaries in the capitalist market of death Rebelion (Micael T)
China urges U.S. to lift blockade, sanctions against Cuba ECNS. And I want a pony.
European Collapse Watch
>Hyperdemocratic European Parliament reimposes mass electronic surveillance regulation after a majority votes it down three times euggypius (Micael T)
Spain’s mega EU debt proposal sets up showdown with northern European countries Politico
German car industry warns of job collapse unless ‘bold decisions’ made to address Chinese threat Guardian
NATO’s New Enemy Is the Thermometer Foreign Policy
From Tax Haven to War Banker: Luxembourg’s Role in Europe’s Military Buildup Laura Ruggeri (Micael T)
The eternal electric car sloop is just a green illusion Aftonbladet via machine translation (Micael T)
Old Blighty
How water shortages could cripple Britain Telegraph
UK has ‘no future’ if it fails to act on ecosystem collapse threatening national security Guardian
” rel=”nofollow”>The Ditching of Nigel Farage Craig Murray
Israel v. The Resistance
Plans to End Aid to Israel — and Replace it with Something Worse Sam Husseini
⚡️ Exclusive to Israeli Channel Kan:
The United States has asked Israel not to carry out exceptional operations in southern Lebanon, and accordingly: the political level has frozen all sensitive operations in southern Lebanon.
The directive to the Israeli army continues until…— Middle East Observer (@ME_Observer_) July 10, 2026
The US is forcing Israel's hand in Lebanon: a US specialised CENTCOM team is expected in Beirut to help the Lebanese army regain control of two villages south of Lebanon, considered a pilot test, that Israel doesn't occupy (no typo mistakes here) but has decided to withdraw from.
— Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 (@ejmalrai) July 10, 2026
* * * Israel ‘weaponising’ water as parched Jordan fights for supply deal New Arab
* * * BREAKING: The US gives Iran a 24 hour deadline to "publicly say that they will stop shooting at ships and explicitly acknowledge that they screwed up," adding that they must say "every channel in the strait will be open and that it will be toll-free." The official warns there…
— The Hormuz Letter (@HormuzLetter) July 10, 2026
Iran told Trump advisers it “made a mistake” in shooting at ships Face the Nation, YouTube. If you believe this, I have a bridge to sell you.
IRAN REFUTES CLAIMS OF PLANNED DISCUSSIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES.
— First Squawk (@FirstSquawk) July 10, 2026
The Iran War As History: The Box Scores Of Foreign Wars American Conservative (resilc)
U.S. Issues NEW Sections on Iran in VIOLATION of Clause 9 of the MoU
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 8 individuals and 6 companies it says are linked to Iran, adding all of them to its Specially Designated Nationals list.
The designations hit currency exchange houses in… pic.twitter.com/9TqFDEjduP
— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) July 10, 2026
Renewed Gulf Hostilities, Elevated Regional and Global Uncertainty Juan Cole
⭕️ The Saudi-backed regime in Aden denied a request from Iranian "Mahan Air" to land in Sana'a, to repatriate Yemeni citizens from Tehran.
They further threatened to take military actions if the plane entered airspace.
They also accuse Iran of interfering in Yemeni affairs. https://t.co/IH6mUbrsE9 pic.twitter.com/Ovqk1mb2Sf
— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) July 10, 2026
Tanker Attacks Risk Overplaying Iran’s Hand and Reigniting a War New York Times
Steel Over Paper: Iran’s Civilizational Rebirth: How Tehran lost its victory Multipolar Press (Micael T)
Syraqistan
Turkey and Iraq Move to Keep Critical Oil Export Route Alive OilPrice
Is Pakistan turning its side of Kashmir into another Balochistan? Nikkei
Pakistani leader vows to press militant crackdown after 42 killed in Balochistan attacks Independent
New Not-So-Cold War
Trump and Rubio Hopeful Ukrainian Deep Strikes Bring Russia to Negotiating Table Simplicius
The European Parliament’s Criticism Of Zelensky’s OUN-UPA Glorification Is A Positive Step Andrew Korybko
Lviv mobilization riot exposes the draft system Ukraine’s government has refused to fix Euromaidan Press (resilc)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Your computer already told on you NO1
It’s A Race Between Revolutionary Consciousness And The Implementation Of Police Robots Caitlin Johnstone (Micael T)
Imperial Collapse Watch
The near-collapsed Midtown building is now stable, but its finances may not be Gothamist
Trump 2.0
Trump’s Forever War Is Finally Here New Republic (resilc)
Trump Administration Fires Members of Independent Election Group New York Times (Chuck L)
Immigration
Lawyer says ICE account of fatal Texas shooting ‘completely false’ The Hill
Witnesses of ICE Killing in Houston Dispute the Official Account New York Times (Robin K)
Economy
IMF warns inflation threat looms large over global economy Financial Times
US Bond yields jump as surging oil prices spark renewed inflation fears Yahoo
AI
The Right Hand Protects You, The Left Hand Signs You Away | NO FAKES Act, Artists Revolt, and a Presidential Favour 🤷🏻🎶 Vinyl Culture (Micael T)
AI Bubble: We’re headed for the first Tech Great Depression | Ed Zitron YouTube
Swiss bank sounds warning over AI investing bubble SwissInfo
Taiwan central bank chief warns of AI bubble risk Economic Times
AI Bust Fallout Would Be ‘More Significant’ Than Dot-Com, Says George Noble Bloomberg, YouTube
Data Centers Are Quietly Taking Over Texas. The Pollution Could Be Catastrophic Wired (Micael T)
Guillotine Watch
“Children go to sleep hungry, while the world’s first trillionaire hungers for more” Caleb Ecarna
Class Warfare
People buying Obamacare health insurance face double-digit premium increases in 2027 for the second year in a row https://t.co/qlzPhhNUJU
— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) July 8, 2026
More Americans say the country is in cost of living crisis, doubt government can fix it ABC
Why American ambulance rides are so expensive David Oks
The Trump Accounts’ false promise Unherd. ” Michael Lind, no man of the Left, has already made the blunt version of this point: accounts like these will furnish politicians with a standing excuse to cut the universal programs.”
Antidote du jour. Tracie H: “A House Sparrow.”
And a bonus:
There are three brides vying for the paw and heart of Timofey, the Pallas's cat from the Moscow Zoo. But finding the right one isn't easy. And such a handsome man certainly wouldn't want just anyone. The main requirement is excellent health.#RTDoc #cats #love #zoo #wildlife… pic.twitter.com/0RjzvnkEcK
— RT_Documentary (@RT_Doc) July 7, 2026
A second bonus:
The chicken has figured out how her feeder works, now closes it in time so the alpacas don't eat all the food pic.twitter.com/svPBNb2t54
— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) July 9, 2026
And a third. (replacing a koala one that was taken down)”
A mother cat teaching her kittens that their dog friend is harmless pic.twitter.com/AS77maUSKu
— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) July 9, 2026
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
‘The Hormuz Letter
@HormuzLetter
BREAKING: The US gives Iran a 24 hour deadline to “publicly say that they will stop shooting at ships and explicitly acknowledge that they screwed up,” adding that they must say “every channel in the strait will be open and that it will be toll-free.” The official warns there will be “harsh consequences” if Iran refuses, saying “if it is not their position tomorrow, it is not gonna be a great day for them.”‘
And Trump wants a magical pony as well. Is this a way of establishing a casus belli so that they can start up the war all over again? Maybe hoping that this time it will be different? Has he run out of ideas that he can try? I think that Trump has been rattled recently. It seems the Israelis are telling him that Iran is going to try to kill him. And when Trump saw those signs carried by some in the Iranian funeral procession calling for his death, well that was it. Proof positive.Did he channel his inner Chuck Norris and say ‘Bring it on!’ or maybe, ‘Give it your best shot, guys’? No. He said this-
‘Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME! Orders have already been given, and the U.S. Military is ready, willing, and able, for a one year period of time, subject to extension, to completely decimate and destroy all areas of Iran – PRAISE BE TO ALLAH! President DONALD J. TRUMP’
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116899176820572671
For Trump, it’s all about ME.
Presidents are infinitely replaceable, there’s no end to those willing to take that job.
And if Trump is assassinated, will it be by/for a domestic actor or Israel and then blamed on Iran?
It wouldn’t be the first time…
If it happens, it will be made to look like ANTIFA did it. The domestic police crackdown following will make the spirits of Stasi officers everywhere exult and rejoice.
I’m kind of thinking that if the US is dumb enough to let an omnicorrupt demented five year old run a war why would you save them?
twice, in a row.
Trump is a presidential POS.
War power act over Iran assassination campaign is 90 days beyond date to withdraw!
Tolls and passage in a strait 8000 miles from US need a declaration of war to cover the enterprise!
May it be that assassinations for oil is not a war?
In 1989, the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a Fatwa, with a $million reward, calling for the death of novelist Salman Rushdie whose novel The Satanic Verses didn’t go over well with the Ayatollah.
I’m not sure how much has changed, however, if issuing Fatwas are still in vogue, who needs the Israelis to warn you. Besides, so many different people, from different walks of life, want Trump gone that it would be hard to prove who did it.
No one has issued a fatwa against Trump. But a big segment of the Iran population does want him dead.
> In his first message since the funeral of his father, Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei has pledged to “avenge [his] innocent blood”, adding that “revenge is the will of our nation.”
But is he an Autopen Ayatollah?
Could he be as intellectually useless as President Vegetable was?
I highly recommend reading the Steel Over Paper piece above and would call it today’s must read. It’s a great rundown of internal Iranian politics that I was not aware of before. The author does not hesitate to say that Raisi was assassinated a few years ago. Raisi was more in line with the religious leadership as president. His successor Pezeshkian is not, and prefers to try to make a deal with the West, despite the West proving to be agreement incapable many, many times.. The author excoriates the neoliberal economic reforms promoted by Pezeshkian and other liberal leaders before him. If this narrative is true, the will of the Iranian people, sold out and impoverished by leaders like Pezeshkian, is definitely for revenge against the Western. We’ll see which faction prevails.
Joe Biden destroyed german unions when he blew up the pipeline and he did it (imo) primarily for that reason plus a hit at RU. As bad as the republicans are, the dems have become the greater evil…by their works you will know them and all that…
And how did German unions, corporations and political parties react to biden’s heinous actions????
They cheered it, and blamed russia. That’s the real tragedy. It wasn’t biden, they did it to themselves!
An “own goal” is scoring one for the opposing team.
My estimate is that 75% of political discourse is to encourage “own goal” behavior.
My first thought on seeing the headlines on this was that its unsurprising that Ryanair’s are now providing glory holes as a paid inflight service.
But to the accident – it appears to have been a blade failure on the engine – A CFM56. This is an extremely common engine on a wide range of aircraft and has a very good service record. A number of blade failures have occurred with this model, but there is no indication that it’s more prone than any other equivalent engine. The concern here is that the containment seems to have failed.
Luckily the guy still had his seat belt on or his wife and other passengers would never have had a chance to pull him back in.
No more window seat for me
A few years ago a woman got sucked out of a plane in America when the window shattered. Ever since then, I always make sure I keep my seat belt fastened.
Then there was the case of a captain being nearly sucked out of the cockpit after the window gave out. The high wind speed had him plastered against the outside of the plane until the copilot could land the plane-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390
“He took a duck in the face at 250 knots”
You are safe. United argues in SF court that ‘window seat’ doesn’t mean seat next to window
Amen on the seat belt. It’s the important safety device in the cabin. A journalism pet peeve is passengers do not get “sucked” out. High altitude jets are pressurized to about 7-8 psi. When a window lets-go all the air in the cabin rushes out the hole to equalize the ambient pressure. You get “blown” out of an airplane. One of my first jobs was flying passengers in an unpressurized single engine Cessna. They were old and worn out so occasionally a door would pop open in flight. The door would crack open about an inch and it was almost impossible to close (or open it any further). This happened to a fellow pilot, and the next day there was an article in the local paper about how a hero passenger held the door closed for about 15 minutes to prevent everyone from being sucked out of the plane. The article did not mention if they were wearing their seat belts.
Google Aloha Air 243 Apr 1988.
A B737 become a convertible!
The sole major casualty a flight attendant who was in the aisle was drawn out of the aircraft.
The pilot maintained controlled flight and immediately descended to where oxygen was not needed and emergency landed intact, except for a section of top fuselage.
The upshot: my job in USAF was exposed to some of the research USAF performed on “aging aircraft” sustainment and safety. We hosted a recurring international working group for militaries flying aging heavy aircraft. Fighter aircraft do not pressurize; their structural fatigue is from accelerations in varying axes.
We were examining when to do a major overhaul of the “skin” on aircraft with 10s of thousand of compression cycles and high 5 digit flight hours.
Reskinning could add 6 or more weeks to a deep inspection if you can lay in the materials.
This was from what I’ve read a fan blade, not a compressor or power turbine blade. But yes, an engine failure leading to window damage on a 737-8 NG, not a MAX.
I saw (but haven’t seen confirmed) that the aircraft was at FL150 when incident occurred. Someday would like to see an analysis of the aerodynamic forces created when an event like this occurs. I guess the velocity is determined by the pressure differential and the window size. Sort of a venturi effect?
Re Big Brother…
I think it’s been mentioned here, but I’d like to emphasize again the waymo drove the teens to the police…talk about a pilot program. The effort to deconstruct civil rights continues apace…
Taleb has been making similar arguments. The evolving public health advice on alcohol seems to have more to do with moral hectoring than any actual statistical evidence. The evidence for negative health impact of low alcohol consumption certainly exists, but the risks are very low and almost certainly negligible for any individual relative to any number of other lifestyle and dietary variables.
Re the Tour de France–in AZ this summer 45c temps–113 fairenheit–have led authorities to close mere hiking trails in the daytime, so it’s hard to imagine how maximum exertion bike riders can cope. Of course tooling along at 30 mph does provide a nice breeze except the whole theory of the peleton is to avoid the air resistance breeze.
Of course the Tour was always an endurance spectacle once sponsored by a newspaper–a kind of They Shoot
HorsesCyclists Don’t They?–and some have therefore questioned how much of a “sport” it is. Are they, this time, putting both riders and spectators to a life or death test?I didn’t read the link, but I watch the stages in recaps. The riders get ice packs to put in the back of their jerseys and spray cold water from water bottles throughout the day. Pro cyclist are a tough bunch.
When the air is warmer than the body the ‘breeze’ is air frying it, not cooling it. The effect is countered by evaporation, so they have to pour water on their bodies as often as possible.
“The near-collapsed Midtown building is now stable, but its finances may not be”
If you look at the fourth window pane from the right you can see a buckled column. Sounds like some engineer took one short cut too many in the load bearing calculations. Of course you have to wonder these days if the architects used an AI to help with the designs. But it is little wonder that they had to evacuate a swath of the local area as part of that building could have collapsed out showering debris below.
Having worked on mid-rise office construction projects, there is also the question of the quality of the cement used in those columns. Often, to speed up the curing of the cement after pouring, cement mixers will add chemicals. The one I remember smelling, and yes, you can smell it hundreds of feet away, is calcium chloride. However, that chemical can rust out iron rebar if not modified properly. In any big time construction project, time is the primary source of ‘friction’ between the engineers and management. Time is money in business and so, many cut corners and take chances to gain it.
The real unasked question here is when will the next tower collapse happen? Gresham’s Law guarantees it.
Sorry, gotta say it. Stay safe?
Caught me out there. I wasn’t in a safety mode frame of mind then. The best way to “stay safe” in such situations as Goingnowhereslowly below shows is to avoid mid and high rise buildings altogether. That is not one of the pitfalls to condo ownership the salesdroids tell you about.
Do stay safe.
Now that the Trump Whisperer in chief from Carolina has passed, I know not whether to feel hopeful or apprehensive about the quality of the decisions coming out of the Oval Office in the near future. The ‘tell’ could be who becomes Dear Leader’s golf buddy now.
I live in a co-op in DC, 1965 vintage. A few years ago significant deterioration in the rebar on our (8 story) towers was discovered and determined to be the result of chlorides that were added to the cement during construction. Now we are looking at ~$40 million in restoration work. Our immediate past president has described this as our “original sin.” It’s going to be a very heavy lift for us to pay for this.
Ouch! Talk about a legacy cost! Since that was sixty years ago, I doubt if there will be a construction company still extant to recover costs resulting from fraud or incompetence.
I can see a wave of high rise building safety issues arising as the earlier building phase ages out.
I was asking myself what incentives I would need to buy a condo in the Pfizer Faller. I don’t think I would live there, if it were offered for free.
They were adding eleven storeys to the thing. I guess I’m not elite enough to understand why that’s a good idea.
AI doesn’t put its stamp on the drawings as the structural engineer, so there’s that.
Can you imagine an AI QC? The thought makes me worry just thinking about it.
We need a new acronym for this process: GIGU (Garbage In Goes Up.)
re: the Unherd article about T’s bait-and-switch ‘ free money for children’ accounts.
Of course it’s a bait-and-switch, of course it’s a con.
tanstaafl
(Sounds like Wall St really needs the money.)
“The Bayeux Tapestry Explained: Watch an Animated Retelling of the Norman Conquest”
It’s a remarkable story and the Bayeux Tapestry is worth visiting if opportunity offers itself. But what is remarkable about the Norman invasion is that their descendants are still more or less in control of Britain today. Cromwell’s rebellious troops were heard to mutter that from that invasion, the General became a King, his Colonels became Dukes, his Captains became Barons and his Lieutenants became Knights. Those Norman invaders changed their language, changed their religion, changed their customs but otherwise everything stayed the same – with them on top.
And, of course, the Bayeux Tapestry is a classic case of history as written by the victors. Norman propaganda in other words.
And the invaders these days paint themselves as a different breed from continental Europe, resisting all sorts of invasions when they are the invaders that destroyed Anglo-Saxon Britain.
re: Ed Zitron and the AI bubble.
One thing overlooked is the fact that AI and the AI Data Center build-out is a military project. Military. There is infinite govt money for the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). Billions of dollars in bailouts if necessary, as recently happened.
See:
https://www.govtech.com/artificial-intelligence/trump-announces-billion-dollar-strategic-ai-investment
and also, because of course it’s T
https://www.aol.com/articles/openai-43bn-offer-trump-genius-164114000.html
I wonder how much money SpaceX selling Starlink to US operatives in Ramstein and Kiev. DoW will make Starlink cost plus at least 6%! Maybe better margin if Musk can get inflated fixed price with nebulas performance.
I think DoW will buy in to data centers on orbit making it wise to buy SpaceX.
It has been pointed out that heat dissipation in vacuum conditions is highly challenging; it may be that no feasible expenditure will solve it. EM’s talk about orbiting datacenters may simply be marketing.
“… heat dissipation in vacuum conditions is highly challenging…”
Quite. What could you actually transfer the heat to?
Musk has enough of a science background to understand this inconvenient fact very well. I am undecided as to whether he is a grifter, or a carpetbagger, or both.
No wonder Henseth change the name from Dept of Defense, the Dod, to the Dept of War, the Dow. The ‘Dow’… get it? /heh
They always tell you what they’re going to do.
And I though Nancy et al were shameless in their stock market trading. / ;)
Is it Henseth of Hogseth?
AFAIK, if you take a cost contract you get DCAA all over your books. Don’t have any idea how effective they are, but the contractor likes to complain about it.
Saw an article in IEEE Spectrum that suggested a data center in space would cost about 3x an earth-based one, which the author thought was do-able.
The MIC is all about in theater (the planet) FSCCC
Full spectrum Comand, Control, and Communication(s).
I have to admit creating a war in the ME with no solution, impacting worldwide oil supplies, is exactly what the world needs right now as these heatwaves get worse and worse.
Which has me wondering….is it coincidence?
Then you have Zelenski, with Washington’s help and guidance, trying to shut down Russian fuel, diesel and food grain deliveries to the outside world at a time that they are desperately needed. Now why would Washington do that?
They even went after Helium production at a time the world is in dire need of it. Alas, the USA is the biggest helium producer, what a coincidence…
From Alex Shephead’s TNR “forever war” piece,
Unless I’m “misunderestimating” Trump, the Joint Chiefs and Trump’s cabinet, hawks all, were opposed to the action, and it was “key advisor” Netanyahu, in a Mara Lago meeting in late December 2025, who argued it would be a slam dunk. No. Trump was not misled. Clearly, he now lacks the ability to think geostrategically, to consider cause and effect with a sophistication greater than that of a willful middle schooler. He simply jumped on a fantasy prescription of success that ignored the results of countless war games, geographic and logistic realities because it satisfied his chronic need to dominate, to be seen as “great”, and his deep, irrational hatred of all things Persian. End of story.
Trump is merely putting into action what the USA establishment had long planned. I don’t buy the ‘Trump is doing things against the advice he gets’ narrative. It serves the Empire to have people believe that. This was all thought over way before Trump. Hillary Clinton was dying to do it if she got the chance. But it doesn’t matter who is president they just fulfill the predetermined role.
Apr 20, 2007 John McCain sung bomb bomb bomb Iran at some event. 19 years ago. He would be happy today. So many of the war mongers are. Imagine once they finally get rid of the hated Trump, who will take over? A warmonger like Rubio, or a warmonger approved by the DNC. There is no alternative. Those are the rules. But don’t worry, the BS coming from both sides telling us different will be spectacular.
According to the NY Times “insider” account of the decision-making process, Trump’s top military advisors did *not* oppose the action against Iran. Both Gen. Dan Caine (Joint Chiefs chair) and John Ratcliffe (CIA) did discuss some “pros” and “cons,” but they basically went along with the action. Only Vance actually opposed the operation, but he nevertheless agreed to support it publicly if that was the President’s decision.
Yes, Netanyahu and his neocon allies worked to convinceTrump that Iran would quickly crumble, and Trump was stupid enough to go along with it. But Caine and Ratcliffe undoubtedly knew better. To me they represent The Blob, which as Rui says above has long targeted Iran for destruction. Now the Blob media can blame Trump for his “recklessness” – while they have the “forever war” with Iran that they want (they have actually been waging this war in multiple ways for 47 years now).
Two articles were posted in Links together the other day that provided variations on the “forever war” theme. One was from Van Jackson’s Un-Diplomatic substack: ‘The Iran War is Permanent.’ The other was from Sam Husseini, ‘The Empire’s Strategic Patience.’ I recommended them the other day, and I do so again.
Along the same lines, I recommend the long NY Times piece on the Ukraine conflict that is excerpted by Simplicius in the link today. It describes the same sort of Blob actions, by many of the same actors, in that theater as well.
I’m struck that accounts of US-Iran relations so rarely mention the American murder of 290 Iranian civilians in 1988. Why is that?
I get the desire to frame as “murder” what was more properly FUBAR. While on that subject let’s talk about Tripoli, Princeton, and the “Sammy B”.
T and admin team have been carefully coached toward the Iran war, with some advisors making it personal for T. From NBC news.
Trump assassination attempt live updates: U.S. learned of Iranian plot to kill Trump weeks before shooting
Authorities said they have found no connection between the plot and the 20-year-old shooter, Thomas Matthew Crooks, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/live-blog/trump-assassination-attempt-live-updates-motive-still-unclear-secret-s-rcna162070
So there was no hard evidence found, but the narrative T got from his trusted advisors claimed Iran was behind the plot. It is a convenient narrative for Isr purposes, imo.
And if one thinks no one in US intel would put out a sketchy story that could benefit another counter, I have a bridge to sell you. (Jonathan Pollard, anyone?)
See also from TYT:
Netanyahu DUPES Trump AGAIN
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_3J0ddkxxE
Our “greatest ally”, indeed. Everything in this story is so outrageous it’s hard to believe. It’s real.
Tucker Carlson interviewing a survivor of the USS Liberty attack.
USS Liberty Survivor Reveals What Really Happened the Day Israel Attacked & the Lies Covering It Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmoeRE_S_7I
an aside: all of the JFK and RFK murder files will never be released, imo. Never.
So my anecdote:
Grew up in Milwaukee. One year we were taking our annual summer Vakay to Virginia to see DC, Williamsburg, Yorktown, etc. We were family camping in Va Beach outside Norfolk. My father was navy in WWII and proud of his service so we visited the Norfolk base. In those days (before VN dominated everything) you could pretty much just drive around the base. So my dad parks by a pier and we saunter over to the nearest ship and my dad talks our way aboard. Some seaman agrees to take us around. I hadn’t the slightest idea what ship it was. Turned out it was the Liberty, just back from the Med. The seaman was pretty clear about the details of the attack, as he showed us the space with new bulkheads where a torpedo had hit and the bridge where holes from where they were strafed had patches welded over the outside, but the metal was still protruding inward on the inside. (This was where the XO was killed I believe.)
Remember clearly what he described: First thing was aircraft shot the ensign (US flag) off the mast. Then the aircraft aimed for the transmitting HF whip antennas (we paint the bases of receiving antennas blue and transmitting red. The antennas are vertical and fairly large as HF was pretty much in the 5-8 MHz band).
So in his mind definitely deliberate. Of course this was a “sea story” no doubt influenced by scuttlebutt and enhanced for credulous listeners but at the same time, this was long before any official or counter-official narrative could be built.
Re: Study Suggests Ozempic Makes Users Docile, Social Engineers Excited About Applications
I began to read the article in Criminology, which is open access. What I read in the abstract and introduction suggests that the authors believe that self-control can be enhanced by GLP-1 RAs. Having precious little in the way of scientific knowledge, here maybe I can contribute some useful thought. Self-control is an interesting concept. It requires, basically, what we’d now identify as Cartesian dualism. Being the master of yourself means that you are both master and slave. This may come to Western intellectual history through Roman law, in which the paterfamilias had dominium, or absolute rights of private property, over the famulus, which means slave. Modern conceptions of property in things, if we accept this premise, are an extension of the Roman idea of property in people. Self-control or self-mastery is another way of saying we own ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we’re free: we would express that by saying we had no owner, or that we aren’t property. But no, we have “self-control”.
Let’s bring it back to criminology. The other day, at a St. Vincent DePaul, I picked up a copy of Lawrence Friedman’s Crime and Punishment in American History. In its introduction, he writes that “governors inside our brains and bodies” restrain us from criminal acts. A standard view.
Marxists Melossi and Pavarini, in The Prison and the Factory, seem to suggest that this dual character required of us in bourgeois society is a reflection of the special properties of surplus-value-producing labor-power, and of the contradiction in which we live between the sphere of circulation, in which we are equal subjects, free masters, and the sphere of production, in which we are exploited, unfree slaves.
All this to say, if you want to lose weight, eat less and exercise more. There are no magic pills in life, and we needn’t think of ourselves as property to control, our own or someone else’s.
“Driver Pulls Over After Spotting A Bald Eagle And A Fox Hanging Out Together”
As the guy said narrating the video, just two predators chilling out together. One that goes after stuff in the air while the other goes for stuff on the ground. I would have liked to see the point where those to came together but I imagine the fox would have joined the bald eagle on the table.
here’s the link that should accompany –
>Hyperdemocratic European Parliament reimposes mass electronic surveillance regulation after a majority votes it down three times euggypius (Micael T)
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/hyperdemocratic-european-parliament
any news on Wuk? – his distinctive take and humor is missed – oh Wuk wherefore ought thou?
Yet another reason to loosen the UK’s ties to Europe. A Commission which breaks the laws governing the EU, and ignores the Constitutions of member states. And the Euro-Krauts continue to intensifying their efforts as they pursue their dream of a Fourth Reich, with a Parliament of slack arsed bastards as keen to shoot off early for their hols as they are to run up the personal expenses.
Nigel Farage might be a total prick, but he’s right about the EU functioning to destroy national constitutions, local laws and governance, and, worst of all, the legitimacy of representative national and regional parliaments.
Re The Ditching of Nigel Farage… this can also be read at Murray’s website. I clicked on the Substack link, but in order to read it there it wants me to download the Substack app, which i wasn’t going to do. This happens with other Substack sites. Everyone wants to scrape my data! I was in Switzerland a few months back and my Pi music player had a GDPR pop-up. It said Pi wanted permission to share my life with 1100 of their partners!
Thanks for the link, I had stopped also because I don’t sign in to read things.
Ditto re thanks for the link. I never sign up either.
Re Your computer already told on you–what kind of lame hacker doesn’t use Linux? Just asking.
Ha, truth.
And just wanted to say today is my last time commenting on here and actually anywhere on the internet.
I know this may sound weird, but I think I am a target for some reason, maybe due to my mental illness. I have had some strange verifiable things happen in my life. I am about to install MVT-ios to check my phone for spyware. But I am closing all my old accounts, changing my phone number, setting up more secure email, going to GrapheneOS again, yada, yada, yada. (I have been getting strange texts recently, out of the blue, looking like they are trying to trick me to respond.
The AI slop is another reason, but I feel the new version of KM Ultra is worse than people imagine and it is mainly used via the internet. I was an activist in my youth and I saw dirty tricks first hand.
Thanks Yves et all. Will still be reading, thought a VPN. Thanks for all your information consolidation!
Have fun Christian, but don’t have too much fun. (ref. Commander Cody)
re: Ukraine War
Jacques Baud with Nima offered a very nice macro-analysis about NATO/AFU strategy vs RU.
Essentially PR vs. war. Which obviously tells us who wins the war.
see TC 47:00-66:00 (before that Iran/Israel/nature of secret intelligence people (good too)
Col. Jacques Baud: The FINAL CARD is Played: Trump ENDS Israel’s Push
July 6th
https://rumble.com/v7cd37w-col.-jacques-baud-the-final-card-is-played-trump-ends-israels-push.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp_v
Correct link for UK has ‘no future’ if it fails to act on ecosystem collapse threatening national security.
The link about the Pallas cats from the Moscow zoo returned this message to me:
This Post from @RT_Doc has been withheld in United Kingdom, European Union in response to a legal demand.
First they came for the cat videos…
This thuggery seems important
How Marco Rubio is Running Venezuela From Afar (NY Times via archive.ph)
Not that this is new in terms of America’s interventions in the Americas.
Does your country have national sovereignty if someone else controls your allowance?
Texas already has a legacy problem of pollution, as well
Texas regulators grapple with a growing problem: old oil wells leaking polluted water (Texas Tribune)
Oops.
Chinese companies use rare earths ban to squeeze out foreign rivals (FT archive.ph link)
It’s A Race Between Revolutionary Consciousness And The Implementation Of Police Robots
Police robots and warfare drones have a good shot of “enjoying” the first artificial consciousness, as they would have to approach acute awareness and flexible adaptiveness.
I’m thinking passenger plane windows should either be made too small for a human body to fit through, or else divided in half or something to reduce the effective size. I don’t think there’s any use case for a window being big enough for someone to fit through, so nothing useful would be lost. The only interesting view from an airborne plane is usually down, so having a picture window doesn’t do much.
My impression is that we have these “X sucked out of airplane window” stories fairly often. Eliminating sources of grisly unexpected instant death always seems worthwhile to me.
I think the use case is passengers expect/demand it. It would be like paxing on an AMC cargo plane — you don’t know you’ve arrived until the wheels hit the runway. I don’t think we’re that worried about going Auric Goldfinger.
When pilots got the armed airman program we were ensured there would be common cases of folks getting sucked out of shot out windows. Still waiting for it.
I think that was Odd Job who made that “unplanned exit” from the aircraft. The same thing was used in one of the later Alien movies with a Xenomorph/Human hybrid.
Nah. Odd Job got himself fried-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfl3DKbQ73E (3:02 mins)
Close. It was his boss who made an “unplanned exit.”
“Study Suggests Ozempic Makes Users Docile, Social Engineers Excited About Applications”
I agree with how Yves parses this, but the fact that Bartee’s argument sounds a lot like what a certain kind of leftist will reliably say about antidepressants makes me skeptical (rather like that daog in yesterday’s antidote). But I ended up finding the culture-war thread (more like one of the cables on the George Washington Bridge) that ran through his whole blog more interesting.
I realize that any left critique of culture war 2.0 that goes beyond it’s a distraction risks taking sides, but it’s useful to consider how the distraction works. The culture wars that I’m old enough to remember (i.e., before they were submerged beneath fake, unconvincing, post-9/11 unity), were straightforward, in that the participants were pretty open about what mattered to them, and why. People like Ralph Reed and James Dobson may have been somewhat coy about wanting a Christian theocracy, but only somewhat.
Contrast this with our current culture wars, a pillar of which for both sides is: HE STARTED IT! It’s almost like the potential for outrage cannot quite be trusted to overcome whatever residual live and let live or different strokes for different folks we still have. It has to be: We’re not the ones making a big deal about it; they’re the ones making a big deal about it! Bartee seems like he has let all of the worst gender-and-sexuality rhetoric into his head, unguarded. To be clear, libs do this, too: Gender reassignment surgery for minors; the whole sports thing.
Going back to the Ozempic piece, one phenomenon that gives the right an advantage in culture war 2.0 is the infantilization of just about everyone: The rendering of all potential conflict into something terrifying, demanding intervention by authority, and only conclusively resolved when a solution has been imposed from above; the triumph of the HR department as a dominant cultural institution, with its credo I feel physically threatened.
This scenario is ridiculous, but our ubiquitous (sometimes enthusiastic, self-) infantilization is the kernel of truth in it, and there is a reason why this infantilization automatically codes as liberal or left. One thing liberals and many (perhaps most) leftists share is the aspiration to a frictionless, beehive-like society, the former through high-tech surveillance and coercion, the latter through fundamental change. Because the right offers no better world, it can freely exploit this fault in the left.
I was also going to include something about millennials’ and zoomers’ scolding, puritanical attitudes toward alcohol (“Is This the End of Booze?”) and tie it to their truly grim gender-and-sexulity culture war via Bartee (I’m guessing he’s about six years younger than me), but, Like Daniel Plainview, I’m finished.
Not where I live. British Columbia’s Human Rights Tribunal handed down a $750,000 fine for disagreeing with “gender ideology” – a term the decision considers tantamount to illegal hate. The Tribunal specifically identified mere disbelief in gender identity as a form of “existential denial.”
I don’t think that’s just a distraction. It is part and parcel of the expansion of technocratic power. It is a mechanism of enclosure. Not only does it inject a class of intermediaries into speech, education, culture, politics, even personal interactions: the atomization of relationships leaves a wasteland with no barriers to colonization by capital. It isolates people so they cannot work together, and it hollows them out so that consumption can fill them up.
This leads to the question of live-and-let-live. The Decline of Deviance article gets tolerance wrong. Our polarized culture is dreadfully intolerant. Tolerance cannot be measured by counting how many things are no longer considered deviant. Tolerance only applies to things we dislike: accepting them as normal is not tolerance.
Modern tolerance was the negotiated compromise following the devastating wars of religion in the 17th century. Believers tried to force their faith. The result was total war. The bloodletting only stopped because of a deal: I may think you are wrong, even evil, but I will tolerate you – so long as you tolerate me. Tolerance was practical, not moral, because enforcing morality led to blood.
Tolerance today is treated as moral – as such, it is legislated and backed up with force. There is no reciprocity, no pragmatism, no negotiation: only morality and power. It has become its opposite, stepping into into the role of the moral conviction that a pragmatic compromise once defused. The righteous see only justified action to achieve progress towards a better world. They are blind to the actual path they are on.
Class struggle is one of the motivations for the culture war, but I do not think it will be the final word. The material benefits for which the left fights are important – but they are only means to and end. The things that truly matter in life, such as our relationships with one another, with nature, with the world, are not material. In essence this is a religious war, with the terrible potential that implies.
As for alcohol, that was also my reaction: Millennial Gray.
I mostly meant ridiculous in the context of GLP-1s (or any other drug with alleged repressive capabilities, when the state has plenty of more mundane means at its disposal), though, yeah, it helps to live in a country that still has to kind-of-sort-of pretend to care about free speech, and where a third of the population is so deeply reactionary that the state has to proceed with caution, when it comes to anything woke. I would trade you for your healthcare, though.
I agree with you about tolerance as a practical value; I’ve thought a lot recently about how, when everyone has a totalizing political philosophy (for their own utility, not necessarily that of the state, and half-baked as it may be) tolerance becomes obsolete.
When you say, “Class struggle is one of the motivations for the culture war,” do you mean that the threat of class struggle (and elite desire to avoid it) is one of the motivations for the culture wars? I would agree with that, as well.
For better or worse, though, I would say that even something like reverence for nature has to have a material component, to confront the material forces seeking to destroy it.
File under AI: Catherine Austin Fitts on Solari Report.
A Discussion of Open-Source AI with Travis Oliphant (Full Interview)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq7GSzwaGBw
Re Mitch McConnell’s cat
Someone needs to open the box.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/11/is-mitch-mcconnell-dead
Re Mitch McConnell’s Cat:
Someone needs to open the box….
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/11/is-mitch-mcconnell-dead
Estonia Won the War on Fentanyl. What Came Next Was Even Worse. (NY Times)
Better living through chemistry?
What’s puzzling about the lethality is, if you kill all your customers, who do you sell product to?
Neolib is all about short term profits. Apres nous le deluge. Or drought. Or pestilence, starvation, disease. To say nothing about global warming.
Imo Gaia has been convinced there are too many humans for the past few generations of them.
And we’re live
Iran Fires on a Ship and Says It Is Closing the Strait After Inconclusive Talks (NY Times)
It seems that it is game-on again.
Trump has already retaliated. (Al Jazeera)
We’re hot (Al Jazeera)
and
I wonder if Iran has a Submarine in the open sea?
It might have been possible for one to escape the gulf during the recent partial opening of the Strait, could you use transiting ships to mask your presence?
Disabling or sinking a Ford Class carrier would please a lot of Shia, and not only in Iran.
Trump’s response is not likely to be “Hinged”, so to speak.
And the Midterms are coming up.
If you think things are crazy now, give it a little time.
Enjoy the show.
Lindsey Graham is dead. Unfortunately his death was fairly quick. He would have deserved to slowly, slowly rot away. I hope he will burn in hell.
Let’s see who the Warmongers la Nueva Generacion are. If they are even crazier.
https://archive.ph/Jdfg1
Hallelujah!