Artificial cell manages a few rounds of cell division Ars Technica
NYC hotel evacuated after bear spray released inside, NYPD says CBS News
Mystery leak from semi-truck in Ohio turns out to be Franks RedHot NBC News
An Unholy Legal War Over ‘The Chosen’ Puck
Heaven’s Featureless Plain Hickman’s Hinterlands
Climate/Environment
In New York City, it was still 94 degrees at midnight.
That’s the highest midnight temperature on record at LaGuardia Airport in Queens.
At 12 a.m. Friday, it was:
94 degrees at LaGuardia
92 degrees at Newark
90 degrees at Central Park
90 at JFK— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) July 3, 2026
Canadian Power Line Meant to Shore Up NYC During Heat Waves Went Down For a Day The City Reporter
Just an absurd amount of wildfires and smoke in Canada this evening. pic.twitter.com/HC2yOm73QJ
— Dakota Smith (@weatherdak) July 3, 2026
D.C. is about to be hotter than 99 percent of the world WaPo
Energy Department Wants Data Centers to Stop Draining the Grid During Brutal Heat Wave Gizmodo
Google’s exponential path to climate-wrecking digital bloat Ketan Joshi
Around 41% of sowing area under drought by June end; Kharif sowing sees sharp drop Down to Earth
💢 More than 1,000 hectares have burned in multiple wildfires across southern France as hundreds of firefighters continue battling blazes fueled by strong winds and dry conditions
🔥 The largest fire, on the Herault-Aude border, has scorched over 800 hectares, while authorities… pic.twitter.com/QUHNHN1gFG
— Anadolu English (@anadoluagency) July 2, 2026
The 12z GFS is perhaps the most extreme model run I’ve ever seen.
It’s forecasting 50°C for France, I believe this is the first time 50°C has appeared on a weather model for France. pic.twitter.com/dZZT77At24
— Met4Cast – UK Weather (@Met4CastUK) July 2, 2026
Watching with some concern about the “mother of all heat domes” across the Western U.S. in 10-12 days … triggered by Super Typhoon Bavi.
This would be unprecedented ridge strength at 6045 meters (500 mb height)
Nobody has seen this before pic.twitter.com/rYHJPdx4SG
— Ryan Maue (@RyanWeather) July 2, 2026
Ebola
Ebola outbreak threatens to push 985,000 into poverty in DRC Down to Earth
Airborne Toxic Events
Boyle Heights blaze choked L.A. with astronomical soot pollution Los Angeles Times
Water
A New Mexico Town Is Running Dry. An Immigration Detention Center Is Its Biggest Water Customer. Inside Climate News
Colorado’s glittering, lush resort towns are facing severe water shortages this summer Water Education Colorado
Japan
Japan weighs state ownership of defense plants to boost arms supply Japan Times
China–Japan relations sail into troubled waters East Asia Forum
China?
An Incomplete Report on US Military Activities in the South China Sea in 2025 The East is Read
America’s “Forward Hub” in the Philippines Is Mostly for Show Inside China
Why China Understands America Landmarks: A Journal of International Dialogue
Should We Discuss the Potholes on China’s Road to Socialism? ZZ’s Blog
India
No political will to seal India-US trade pact under current terms Hindu Businessline
Syraqistan
Gaza marks 1,000 days of genocide as Palestinians reaffirm right to resist ‘by all forms’ The Cradle
Exclusive: ICC bureau changes rules to lower threshold for Khan’s removal Middle East Eye
US Presbyterian Church votes to recognise Gaza genocide New Arab
The divestment drive that could shake Israel’s economic foundations +972 Magazine
Iran projects defiance and unity through Sayyed Ali Khamenei’s funeral Al Mayadeen
European Disunion
German workers banned from taking sick leave without a medical note in tough reforms The Independent
Spain blacklists Palantir while NATO embraces its Maven Smart System Cybernews
Trump blocks Hegseth plan for deeper US troop cuts in Europe Al Mayadeen
EU trade with US hits record high despite tariff tensions, study shows Reuters
Africa
More than 900 arrested during South Africa’s antimigrant protests Al Jazeera
Washington thinks it can fix Libya. It may be about to break it again instead RT
New Not-So-Cold War
The Aims of NATO/U.S.-Organized Missile Attacks Inside Russia Go Far Beyond Russia Alone Guancha
2026 war trends Events in Ukraine
SITREP 7/2/26: Another Massive Strike on Kiev, as Konstantinovka on the Brink Simplicius
NATO 3.0 Biljana Vankovska, Savage Minds
Another Drone Attack on the Russian Embassy in Sweden TeleSur
Germany Charges Former Ukrainian Officer Over Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage Reuters
South of the Border
Peru reasserts control over China’s flagship South American port Intellinews
Venezuela: US Expands Post-Earthquake Military Footprint Venezuelanalysis
Spook Country
The Spy Who Wasn’t The After-Action Report
Trump 2.0
Trump discloses 327 unreported stock trades made a day before his first tariff pause NBC News
President Donald Trump defends business dealings, his children in exclusive interview with CNBC CNBC
AGENCY INDEPENDENCE IN ONE AGENCY: HUMPHREY’S EXECUTOR IS COWERING IN THE BASEMENT OF THE ECCLES BUILDING Notes on the Crises
DOGE official’s move to Trump’s NSC stalls following Loomer campaign Politico. Over his ties to Democrats!
250th
Extreme heat advisory delays National Mall July 4 event, organizers say The Hill
The stage is falling apart at the rehearsal for Freedom 250’s July 4th celebration. pic.twitter.com/bPbg94hp6X
— Aaron Parnas (@AaronParnas) July 2, 2026
F$$K the Fourth: Declaring Our Collective Independence from the Sinking Ship of U.S. Empire Black Agenda Report
GOP Funhouse
Is Mitch McConnell Dead? Ken Klippenstein
Democrats Suck
Corporate Pundits Panic Over Democratic Voters’ Socialist Preferences FAIR
Dem CO gov nominee calls out DSA candidate for antisemitism comment The Hill
Police State Watch
FBI report claims anti-capitalist graffiti could indicate plans for violence Prism
AI
Smooth AI criminal drives ‘first’ end-to-end agentic ransomware attack The Register
Ditch your phone and join the Summer of Ludd, the offline festival happening in NYC Gothamist
Economy
Cooler June jobs report to keep Fed focused on inflation, with possibility of hikes later this year Yahoo! Finance
Class Warfare
ARE NYC’S RENT-STABILIZED BUILDINGS REALLY IN CRISIS? Shelterforce
IRS agrees to stop stealing workers’ pro-union decorations Government Executive
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
> US Presbyterian Church votes to recognise Gaza genocide New Arab
Given the dead-end of reforming corporate DNC with Wilding v. DNC Services Corp., and the mountain to climb of a third party, there is a grassroots reform move that could work.
A campaign to vote against anyone who took AIPAC funds. Simple, easy, verifiable, no overhead, individual choice. Get out the vote!
Not so easy since AIPAC has gone full into the dark money using pop up shell organizations with less obvious names like the United Democracy Project or the Progressive Alliance. Best way to determine if a candidate is beholden to AIPAC and the genocide lobby is to ask the candidate if Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, any answer other than “yes” is a tell.
“A New Mexico Town Is Running Dry. An Immigration Detention Center Is Its Biggest Water Customer. – Inside Climate News”
Just waiting for that New Mexican mayor – who has gone MIA after letting this mess to develop – to come back to announce the good news that he has just signed a contract with a corporation to build a data center next to the town.
I’ve spent some time in Estancia, the county seat of Torrance County. That Cortez pipeline case I described in some detail a few days back was tried in Estancia. The town sits on the high plains east of the Manzano mountains. In the spring, when the fields have been plowed, dust storms are common. It’s a pretty bleak place.
New Mexico dust storms are epic if you are driving through them. It’s the only state I’ve traveled that has wind socks on the highway bridges.
That said Oklahoma probably has more wind but without the blinding dust.
Oh, the dust may return to OK, even with fancy modern planting methods.
Albuquerque. Crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande yesterday on the way to my annual physical. For the first time ever (that I have seen it), there was no water in it. Completely dry.
‘Aaron Parnas
@AaronParnas
The stage is falling apart at the rehearsal for Freedom 250’s July 4th celebration.’
Seems that all the things that Trump pushes has major problems crop up and you wonder if this was a result of no-bid contracts for his buddies. Here you have a part of the stage fall down. You have the ongoing saga of the reflective pool. And just today I was reading about the mock-up of the Trump Arch at his State Fair which people are staying away from in droves-
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-arch-state-fair-substance-b3007515.html
Yes nature doesn’t seem to approve of Trumpco. Recall the inauguration had to be moved indoors due to record low temps.
When Gaia is trying to tell you something, listen.
I think that you might be right. There is an article in Links today called “D.C. is about to be hotter than 99 percent of the world.” But maybe one reason for this is the hot air let off by people like this guy-
https://xcancel.com/mehdirhasan/status/2072109393949131146 (1:45 min video)
I used to do stagecraft so that video was in my wheel house. I’d say it’s not just the grifting on the contract and materials side, but also the way that all this stuff was willed into being at the 11th hour. A large scale event like that requires many months, even years, of planning. When you have people who are more political cronies and don’t do this type of planning and logistics plus the lack of time for proper planning and the considerable grift baked in, you have a recipe for failure at best and disaster at worst.
Glad that panel seemed to miss all the performers. A similar event permanently disabled, and ultimately lead to the death of, Curtis Mayfield. I feel the only thing preventing some kind of tragedy at Trump’s so called “State Fair” is the fact that no one showed up. Hopefully that holds for Freedom 250.
Thirty years of theater here. And my first thought was “thank god no one was killed”.
It isn’t just early logistics. There is no doubt in my mind that a significant portion of both the build crew and stage crew have little or no stage experience especially fly work, and thus little understanding of the stresses on the larger scenic pieces that fly.
“…the build crew and stage crew have little or no stage experience…”
What happened to the experienced crews from a couple of years ago? Did they get ICEd? Asking for a friend.
I cant find any info via search on weather IATSE crews have set up these stages in the DC area. My guess is no. It was probably a sub contractor of a subcontractor of a subcontractor using a labour provider that crewed these shows.
Where are the safety chains?!! That was our mantra when lighting sound studios for film work and the few days I did Rock and Roll lighting (too much for my film ass) they were just as vigorous.
While talking about unrelated tragedy during performances, while doom scrolling for stuff on the war (which one) on Twitter, I get stuff about movies in my feed now. During the filming of T2, apparently Linda Hamilton got permanent hearing damage having forgotten to put earplugs back in during the elevator scene filming. I recall Shatner also got tinnitus from an explosion or some such on the set for Star Trek.
It’s amazing how dangerous this stuff can be.
I’d expect these kind of injuries in law enforcement, the military, EMS, but not for performers.
I used to do set and sound for county fairs in MN and at the MN State Fair (and still do sound!). When I saw dancers on a temporary stage, my first thought was stage collapse. I saw that happen too many times, including one where an unfortunate teenage girl seriously injured her back.
Stage failure can hurt performers, but the overhead stuff can kill people if that falls.
I agree that this looks like something that wasn’t planned in advance. At the MN State Fair, we had our set design signed by a structural PE who then inspected our set. One of the sets required the director and choreographer to redo parts of the performance when the PE informed us that the dynamic load of 6 dancers was too much for the set to safely carry. Who knows if anything professional was done for this- wind load? Heat effects on fasteners? My guess is not “no”, but “no way in hell”.
Right there is the functional description of significant portion of the American economy.
That reminds me of the story that Van Halen had a contract rider excluding certain M & M colors. If those colors showed up, they knew their crew had to triple check all the stage safety precautions also in the contract.
Re Hickman’s Hinterlands extensive meditation on the photograph Rhein II
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein_II
Contrarian Thomas “Bauhaus to our house” Wolfe wrote another putdown of modern aesthetics called The Painted Word where he said the modern art trends in NYC in particular were all about explanations rather than visual inspiration. This seemed to generate even greater ire than his architecture book, but his point is worth taking. Of course any writer is entitled–like Proust with his madeleine–to launch into narrative on any convenient excuse but when millions of $ are at stake one may wonder what is really going on.
Philistine that I am I had to look up the “famous” Rhein II photo. Eh…..
Keep in mind that collectors at that level are primarily investors. There are examples of visually compelling work off the beaten path. I had my socks knocked off yesterday. A critic: ‘A vernacular snapshot. Pushed through Photoshop, AI., and back to Photoshop. Sometimes painting.’ (Neue Sachlichkeit– New Objectivity).
Critic: ‘The technology jumps forward, mashes itself up, and even disappears. What remains is poetry.’
I remember that book “The Painted Word” well. In his history of modern art, Tom Wolfe recounted how artists put less and less into their work till it got to the point that they did not even create one but put a notice in a newspaper about their intent to do so. From the Wikipedia aticle-
’Wolfe provided his own history of what he saw as the devolution of modern art. He summarized that history: “In the beginning we got rid of nineteenth-century storybook realism. Then we got rid of representational objects. Then we got rid of the third dimension altogether and got really flat (Abstract Expressionism). Then we got rid of airiness, brushstrokes, most of the paint, and the last viruses of drawing and complicated designs”. After providing examples of other techniques and the schools that abandoned them, Wolfe concluded with Conceptual Art: “…there, at last, it was! No more realism, no more representation objects, no more lines, colors, forms, and contours, no more pigments, no more brushstrokes. …Art made its final flight, climbed higher and higher in an ever-decreasing tighter-turning spiral until… it disappeared up its own fundamental aperture… and came out the other side as Art Theory!… Art Theory pure and simple, words on a page, literature undefiled by vision… late twentieth-century Modern Art was about to fulfill its destiny, which was: to become nothing less than Literature pure and simple”.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Painted_Word
When the Kine begin to balk you can either loosen the muzzle, or whip them bloody.
The Western elites have chosen to whip them bloody.
Partly for the entertainment, hurting helpless people is a lot of fun for the upper classes.
It always has been.
Re: Presbyterian Church’s condemnation of the Gaza genocide, Palantir, etc…
I’m proud of the church that was formative for me, starting in the 1950’s, in Prairie Village, Kansas.
My minister then, Dr. Bob Meneilly, later gave a sermon on the separation of church and state, The Dangers of Religion.
It was reprinted in 1993 as a NY Times op ed. The sermon can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i15TtE_Z1to
The contrast with the likes of Huckabee, and so many in politics, is profound. More on Dr. Bob’s activism can be read in this obit:
https://www.monmouthcollege.edu/live/news/2994-remembering-dr-bob-meneilly
Though my religious views often center around hoping for a pleasant surprise, I wish more Americans were as lucky as I was to have such guidance early. It might have spared us much of the madness before us.
Feel the same way about my childhood in the church in NJ.
And mine in Vedanta, the influence of Swami Ashokananda has continued to provide me with both comfort and insight.
I don’t think the PCUSA is doing so great these days.
“Carnage in France as people fight over air-con units ahead of this weekend’s heatwave with huge crowds forcing open supermarket doors to grab fans”
Well at least they weren’t fighting over rolls of toilet paper. That would have been undignified that.
Re: FBI report claims anti-capitalist graffiti could indicate plans for violence Prism
Was just thinking all these heatwave weather maps are a form of anti-capitalist graffiti. And this FBI report is in itself a manifestation of that same capitalist violence which is causing these heat events.
> In New York City, it was still 94 degrees at midnight.
> 90 degrees at Central Park
It was 90 here in Boston at that time. This was on the balcony in the back ally which has many trees and is shaded by the buildings from mid morning on. The sensor is in a Stevenson screened shelter.
Now we’re eating water melon out of the fridge. Mmmm.
Walking the shelter dogs this afternoon will be rough, rough, rough (geddit?)
I’d seriously consider putting some sort of booties on the paws on your dogs if the concrete paths get too hot.
Most of the sidewalks we use are shaded by trees or buildings so it’s not so bad, not like Arizona or Texas. Still need to watch for overheating and get them back indoors to the air con quickly before the panting gets too hard.
Do you folks get the humidex readings along with temperature? Right now in my little town in Eastern Ontario it is 85F but it feels like 90 which is much cooler than the other day when our humidex was 47C which is 116F! It is the humidity that will kill you because your sweat doesn’t evaporate and your body can’t cool. Of course extreme dry heat is problematic too but eastern North America’s heat is usually accompanied by humidity. Between the humidity and the glaring sun and high UV index, it is almost impossible to be outside right now. I am getting out before 7am to walk and the garden is on its own right now. We’ve been keeping the house at around 77 or 78 and it still feels much cooler than outside. Thankfully we’ve had a fair amount of rain (probably too much for the farmers) so the trees and other plants don’t seem to be suffering as much as they did in last year’s late summer’s drought. Between the heat and the wind and the rain, it truly amazes me that we’re carrying on as if this is just a little bit of bad weather. I din’t know how our agricultural system survives this craziness.
For example today in Washington DC it is 98 and the humidex is 109
We have something called heat index. It’s one of the two “feels like” numbers. The other is wind chill used in the winter. There are a number of different formulas used for these purposes around the world.
The person that invented the heat index scale died last year 68 but felt like 82. ;)
Personally i prefer to look at temperature and dew point in the summer, wind speed in the winter.
I happened to have the all day sun facing apartment in Somerville when I was there until the Pandemic started. It got brutally hot inside, like 85 or whatever. I spent the entire summer hiding in a little room with a window AC running. It seems like AC is simply mandatory anywhere in the world anymore. Unfortunately, in cities it simply exacerbates the heat issue. Tragedy of the commons. All that unwanted heat has to go somewhere when expelled from inside. Oops.
Eventually the power grid will fail. Brownouts for the poor neighborhoods in metropolitan areas is how things have worked in the past. I remember the term “tinderbox” used to describe the cliff edge of civil unrest during heatwaves back in the 70s. Seems accurate here.
Here in Hawaii we just got what I would consider summer weather a couple weeks ago. We don’t have any AC in our 70s-vintage SF home. But the trend is to cram more housing into a smaller area and these newer subdivisions pretty much all have AC. Ductless mini-split systems are retrofitted in some homes around us, not sure what fraction have them. Nothing here is insulated so the solar heat load is high. Older housing is “single wall” so there’s no cavity to retrofit blow-in insulation.
Our traditional “AC” is the trade winds and open windows. We’re used to indoor temps in the upper 70s or 80. Just got back from US mainland where we find it freezing cold indoors.
With electric rates around 42 cents/kWHr here on Oahu, if you go to AC you pretty much have to invest in rooftop solar.
I read an article this week about surviving in the heat (can’t remember where, i read a lot). The obvious* bit, which I already knew, was to use a fan to get cooler. The lightbulb moment for me was to only use a fan during moist heat – “feels like” significantly higher than actual temp, and your shirt gets wet. When it’s dry heat, with “feels like” lower than actual, a fan will just blow more hot air past the skin, and increase body temperature. That’s the time for a mist spray or a wet towel. Could be useful information for staff working in aged care homes or similar.
*Obvious when you think about it, but this dunce never had. And obvious, i guess, to most people who live with frequent hot spells; that’s not me. It’s 3 C here just now – 37 in the old money.
“Germany Charges Former Ukrainian Officer Over Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage”
Well I for one will be looking forward to this trial. And the attempts of the prosecution to prove that a bunch of goof balls and a pron star were able to blow up those pipelines without the boat, the equipment or the training to do so. Can you imagine what the defense might come up with in the discovery process? Will the judge allow that clip of Biden threatening that pipeline to be played in court? I think that I will need more popcorn.
Do not let your expectations fly too high. After all, the judge may decide to hold the process behind closed doors, in camera, because of all those state secrets and sensitive sources and confidential diplomatic stuff.
By the way: Germany (like most of Europe) follows a Roman-Germanic legal process, so the discovery procedure runs very differently than in Anglo-Saxon common-law jurisdictions. Basically, it is controlled by the judge during the trial, not performed by the parties before it (as another example, in France, a specialized “juge d’instruction” is responsible for performing discovery and deciding upon admissibility of evidence before the trial).
Summa summarum: I believe this process will be another attempt to “drown the fish” as the French say. After all, the idea that a handful of Ukrainians on a small pleasure craft did blow three Nord Stream pipelines by themselves, without the authorization and without technical assistance from the UK or the USA, appears ludicrous.
exactly
thanks
In other words, how cover up the political nature of the trial in a country that officially due to its stellar democratic tradition knows no political trtials ever compared to evil Nazis and Communists.
God, we are so blessed a country.
In charge I guess is general attorney Jens Rommel, afaik his expertise is prosecuting crimes under WWII Nazi rule.
He has now time on his hand with almost none of the old Nazis alive any more. How practical.
In the UK the idiotic Skripal case was at leaat thrown out of the court.
Unthinkable here.
Re: Is Mitch McConnell dead?
Excellent article, thanks for putting it in today’s links. Freeze Frame, whereabouts unknown. Other dotards are allowed to go on a walkabout for months, public interest be damned.
That’s a great point; however, I have a sinking feeling that AIPAC knows where Mitch McConnell is, down to the exact coordinates. And one of McConnell’s staff probably gave them all the details on his illness, down to medical records, prognosis, etc.
There’s one easy way to tell if Mitch McConnel is dead, he would smell better.
You just made my day – or at least made me smile. I’ll have to remember that.
re: US Constitution
A German review of Jill Lepore´s
“We the People: A History of the American Constitution.”
machine-translation
We the People: A History of the American Constitution.
https://archive.is/0gYVx
Some criticism like:
“(…)
This is a substantial book that doesn’t make things easy for the reader. Lepore’s important historical findings are buried in passages that are not conducive to clarity. They are hidden in lengthy marginalia and biographical anecdotes unrelated to the topic. Why is the fact of Ted Kennedy’s plane crash discussed at length over almost an entire page (p. 579)? Why does the African-American journalist Ethel Payne, who was certainly of great importance to the Civil Rights Movement, receive so much attention in connection with the 1955 Bandung Conference (pp. 530–545)? Lepore herself notes that Payne is not the most obvious person to explain the debate surrounding the Constitution in the United States (p. 510). With so many facts, the likelihood of errors increases.
(…)
If the author had consulted the “Records of Proceedings in Convention” of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, she would know that there was no “sweltering heat” during the deliberations of the summer of 1787. [2] The tariffs of 1828 were not opposed because the slave states were to be “punished,” but because, with average import duties of 50 percent, they protected Northern industry from British competition and thus severely harmed the agrarian states of the South. This tariff law remains the most restrictive protective tariff in the US to this day (p. 242). Lepore’s text is unnecessarily long-winded and whimsical. While this demonstrates her erudition, it also omits important secondary literature.
(…)”
That’s a mean scroll through climate/environment. One does not need credentials to read the writing on the wall. H and I are way out the coast of Maine, the state I was raised in. We are on the oceans edge. The air quality yesterday and today is poor enough to make our lungs ache and burn, the polar opposite of what is usually extremely pleasant air. It is not as dangerously hot today, yet I can tolerate no more than a minute or two of the blazing sun. We haven’t been out on the water once. The exposure prohibits it. There are zero pleasure boats in the cove, unheard of around Independence Day weekend.
Stay safe. Prepare for the worst if you can.
Ouch.
I was late to the party, but when I first learned about climate in the NY Times in 2004, I knew we were all screwed. It sucks I’ll live long enough to truly experience it. All of this portends a bad death.
Throw in the commonality of covid induced lung damage. My existential bingo card ain’t pretty.
It’s not just lung damage, it’s systemic damage including widespread brain damage, Anosognosia.
The change in driving behavior is one obvious result, I don’t drive much any more and walking has become so painful that I can only make a mile or, so slowly.
It’s a rare day that I don’t see someone run a red light or drive at a reckless rate of speed.
Pre Covid I drove and walked quite a bit more and I’d see this behavior about once a week.
Yup. Me being me, I must quip that shuffling off one’s mortal coil in a traffic accident seems quaint these days.
I strenuously avoid driving at peak hours. We’re calling it quits and heading back to VT tomorrow. We will hit the road before the break of dawn.
It’s a rare day that I don’t see someone run a red light or drive at a reckless rate of speed.
As someone who’s sat through more traffic trials* than you can shake a stick at, I’m fairly confident that much of that behavior was the same in the BC** era. Americans are just generally crappy drivers (rude, impolite, in a hurry, “gotta be first,” inobservant) – though finding out that Oregon does not have a mandatory driver education program in high school did explain a lot more than just the usual crap driving.
*coming up on two decades now. Sheeeesh….
**Before Covid. ;-)
This is a spot cut to Alastair McCrooke talking about the nihilism in Western governments and corporate media.
I like those three otters, or at least I think they’re otters, in the antidote du jour. They have mischief written all over their faces.
They’re beavers (follow the via).
Could be otters cosplaying as beavers, though…:-)
Flipping through Youtube this morning, I came across a recent interview of Doug Rushkoff, the “billionaire whisperer,” with a suitably clickbaity title. I checked it out, and found it interesting, as I usually do with Rushkoff’s always witty and sometimes profound observations about the people driving civilization to the brink. The conversation evolved into one about the meaning of life, more or less, and Rushkoff made some claims I had never heard before. He said that the Levitt brothers, builders of the first post-WWII suburb, were in contact with the FDR administration about the social “benefits” of suburbs, and how class-based radicalism would be a lot less likely in a world of 30-year mortgages, Happy Motoring (whatever happened to Kunstler?), and keeping up with the Joneses. (spot cut to Rushkoff’s claim) Rushkoff devotes a chapter about this in his book, Life, Inc., with more documentation about the Roosevelt Administration’s role in what looks to be, in retrospect, one of the worst planning decisions in human history.
This also changes the narrative about what happened to the Left. The unions that fought the battles of Blair Mountain and of Flint, became the well-domesticated members of George Meany’s AFL-CIO, who worked in tandem with the CIA to expunge Communists from South American unions. The core of the Left, whose radicalism had been the biggest bargaining chip in winning the social reforms of the New Deal, had been betrayed by the 40s version of the Roosevelt administration into being neutered from being a force of social reform and class solidarity in return for a lower co-pay on the company health insurance and an extra 3-day holiday.
This was the cry of Mario Savio, and of the Port Huron Statement:
So those who blame the New Left or the 60s counterculture for the demise of the Left, and they are many, have it wrong. The Left they think they remember died years before there was an SDS. It died not because of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, but because of the bowl of porridge offered by the Levitts with the complicity (VA loans, FHA, etc.) of the late New Deal.
As I recall, elites feared a repeat of the period after World War I when soldiers turned to socialism. The suburbs were deliberately zoned to exclude meeting places like pubs where men could organize. Women were excluded from the workforce, again to keep men occupied so they would not organize. Women’s social isolation destroyed the social networks that in the past had placed women at the heart of their communities. They were instead drugged, then furious over what had been taken from them. And then there was the disaster of car-dependent development.
I recently learned that it was FDR who adopted the term “liberal” to refer to his progressive policies. (Progressivism, as I recall, was the sop given by the soon-to-be PMC to the working class after the rural populist movement of the late 19th century was dismantled.) Politics became about two factions: “liberals” who advocate government intervention and “conservatives” who favour markets. From the dialectic emerged the neoliberal synthesis: government intervention to maximize the role of markets. This is the secret of propaganda: create a fight in a box and no-one will look outside. With all attention focused on big vs little government foundational questions of politics, like what constitutes a good life and the role of people in governing themselves, were ignored, then forgotten, now virtually outlawed.
I don’t particularly mean this as an attack on FDR. I don’t know enough about him, politics is messy, and human plans go awry. My aunt’s partner got red in the face asking why conservatives always cut social spending. When I responded that there are no actual mainstream conservative or left wing parties, only liberal ones, she just looked at me, her fury bottled up by incomprehension. I think a lot of “progressives” have sympathy for both conservative and left ideas, but we have arrived at a point where “conservative” means “liberal,” “liberal” means “progressive,” and there is no name for actual conservatism or the labour left. (And don’t you dare mix them – that’s a red brown alliance don’t you know.)
“create a fight in a box”
This is what those who place the blame for the crippling decline of the Left, in the traditional class-based sense, on the antiwar, anti-consumerist 60s counterculture are doing. What the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and the Port Huron Statement were trying to do was revive an already dead Left, unless you wanted to define the “Left” as striving for another sick day. Staughton Lynd, contrasting the labor movement of the 30s to post-war unionism, and even more dramatically to the IWW in the 1920s, recommended a return to solidarity unionism, broader social goals, IWW tactics, etc. But what happened was that Reuther was seduced to take the CIO into a merger with the AFL, and effectively, the Democrat Party, and this kind of thing was the result:
What passed for the labor movement in the United States was mostly represented by an institution comfortably ensconced on 16th Street, a few blocks from the White House, that was tolerant of American racism and strongly supportive of American imperialism. The membership’s political views were often “Silent Majority” and would soon become “Reagan Democrats.”
Blaming the failure of the American Left on the damn hippies is an attempt to escape the harder question of how the Left fell for a scheme to sedate them with four-week vacations, a travel trailer or a ski boat. The “American Dream” turns out to be the way that Americans were lured into a state of individualist helplessness so that now, when the Left is far beyond defanged, the latest versions of the Levitts are planning a fate for us plebes worse even than the ‘burbs.
A relative’s nephew was an US Army Infantry Captain in Afghanistan. He would send monthly emails with pictures of him being from the Fugarwe Tribe (Army joke, not the biker club) asking locals for where he was and taking care of his people. One thing he mentioned was how popular Occupy Wallstreet was with his organization.
Yes … it was pointed out on NC in its early yrs that FDR did the old switcheroo with the term “liberal” in advancing social policies which supported a broad stable middle class vs a more classical notion of natural rule[tm] by a few. Same for his framing of Social Security as a – payed into system – just to get it past the political post, due to ideological constructs which took a dim view of free stuff[tm] or Gov interference in the Creators grand plan e.g. people at the top are divine choices – see the tech oligarchs et al. It matters not the veracity of this proposition, past or present, because its self fulfilling via its demand pull and apologia for what is wrought in its name.
On that note Lars had a nice post – What Adorno understood about the far right – https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2026/07/03/what-adorno-understood-about-the-far-right/
‘It is very often the case that convictions and ideologies take on their demonic, their genuinely destructive character precisely when the objective situation has deprived them of substance’.
I think this is reasonable due to those that have supported Trump and their grand project=bring the past back or their imaginary notion of it, synergies with Isr thingy and authoritative evangs. I mean I recently saw a video of a GOP congress woman on some business/econ panel say when confronted about any environmental risks quickly responded with “its not in the bible about how humanity ends” ipso facto by her[tm] belief*=demand pull all should just accept the outcome/s in ringing in the prophecy. Hence the ridiculous level of religious/status iconography by Trumps camp on everything, would make some Roman emperors blush, same with his whack UFC/Gladiator even at the WH.
On a personally level I would like to meet him in a dark ally, point out all the talk about people getting killed= bad thing and at the same time talk about wiping millions of the face of the earth if they don’t surrender too him. Slowly pick him apart, liver/kidneys, abdomen, legs/joints, no head shots. Especially as he is like an Emperor that likes watching UFC fights but not even on his best day could fight out of a wet paper bag. It would all be about humiliation=something a person like him thought they would experience as most of it has been flipping gold coins out at those he ran over or just said sue me …
I have conflicting opinions about FDR, but I do think he was the greatest president of the 20th century. The various books I’ve read about him indicated that his big fear was a revolution of the working people, and that’s what drove him to try various policies to fix the economy. He would listen to his advisors, try certain things on for size, and sometimes he’d have to ditch them if they weren’t working, and other times they worked well. Plus when we declared war, our country was basically a socialist nation until after peace came about. His big gift to America was building the largest middle class ever, making life better for most Americans (except, of course, black people and other minorities).
“His big gift to America was building the largest middle class ever,”
I’m trying to argue the opposite. That “middle class” was a sedated working class that now finds itself bereft of the skills necessary to organize against what is more and more clearly an intent on the part of elites to at least impoverish them, if not eliminate them.
But it was such good porridge. For a while.
Not sure officially what defines “middle class,” but I meant that people had jobs that paid enough to own a house and buy a car and more. Almost a cliche for a boomer to remember that everyone on his block owned their house, had two or three children, owned at least one car (each car being passed to an offspring when a new car is bought), and the children could go to college if they wanted to without being burdened by debt for a few decades.
The beginning of the decline was Ronald Reagan’s presidency, and continued with each following president and congress managing to screw everyone who wasn’t rich.
As Big Serge previously noted, a journalist Mr. Jacob Jones from Investigatewest(dot)org, did end up carrying out his doxxing threat by publishing his hit piece against him, probably with the intent of getting Big Serge fired by accusing him of being far-right and what not. Thankfully it seems like it hasn’t affected him too much so far
Never heard of Jones or the blog/paper he writes for before, wonder why they targeted Big Serge
“Google’s exponential path to climate-wrecking digital bloat”
Well, of course their energy usage is exponential; the underlying algorithm is exponential (n^2) in both time and space (CPU cycles and memory usage). Further, “improvements” simply increase n which is the current form of Billionaire d*ck-waving. Makes Gatsby-scale cottages and 200 meter yachts seem quaint.
And those Jazz Age plutocats were just trying to impress their guests and own the politicians. Today, owning the politicians is a given, but they’re a lot more ambitious. They’re trying to colonize the universe, become immortal, create a silicon God, and corner the market on hot and young women. The increase in the scope of the destruction they cause will be proportional to the absurdity of their goals.
So sad about Venezuela….though of course I was never a huge fan of Chavez…he still greatly improved the lives of people…and helped throw off the shackle of IMF shit. Trump actually won. damn. I expect death squads there next….Same with Cuba….an authoritarian gov’t….but compared to what the USA supported in the 70’s and 80’s in so many other LA countries….look at how kinda ‘healthy’ that country was anyway…………..I never supported the sanctions or overthrows…or the ‘left’ gov’ts really….except that …my gov’t would always be so horribly worse.
Venezuela is a really brutal story; AFAICT the current death toll is only people they’ve found and will probably go up by 1 or 2 orders.
On the politics since Maduro was kidnapped though, it’s really a mystery to me. The current leadership walks & talks like they’ve sold out. Yet with the exception of Alex Saab, they don’t seem to have really oppressed the rest of the chavista structure or grassroots. They’ve still kept the old opposition at bay. And besides the occasional awkward article where Telesur sheepishly repeats pro-US government statements, the media definitely hasn’t been turned.
I don’t know Venezuela or the government well enough to say whether they’re just playing possum really hard. It seems pretty unlikely. But the possibility that anyone in the Venezuelan gov actually believes there’s any real value in aligning with the US also seems crazy to me. I mean, I’m a US citizen living in America & I wouldn’t trust any the government’s intentions even if I were bleeding in the street.
re: US industrial revolution
MIT essay
American Progress Was an Optical Illusion
The turn-of-the-century energy transition dazzled the nation — while concealing segregation, extraction, and ruin.
by David Nye
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/american-progress-was-an-optical-illusion/
oh…
While he identifies several of the contradictions between the myth of American progress and reality, he fails to see the fundamental contradiction between the goals of American progress and the necessity of staying within planetary boundaries. Was the American Dream denied to many? Sure. Was it aimed at pacifying the working class while making a farce of the idea that America was a democracy that valued the input of more than an elite defined by wealth or credentials? The former concern was partly alleviated by the reforms of the 60s, but the latter has been ignored or hidden the way a fracker claims the concoction of poisons it injects into the ground is a trade secret.
After the scares of Russian Bolshevism in the 1920s and Reuther street fightin’ men of the 30s, the elite avoided a direct confrontation. The labor movement, dependent almost entirely on the exercise of committed muscle in a fight, was a formidable adversary in a fight whose outcome was not certain.
So there had to be concessions. There were, but they were always regarded as temporary, to be reversed at the first opportunity. Most pertinent to the labor movement, the NRA was ruled unconstitutional, voiding Section 7(a) that gave federal protection to the right to organize without any bells or whistles. Next came the Wagner Act, with a right to organize similar to NRA Section 7, but with the bells and whistles of a federal regulatory agency to call ball and strikes and federal court review. The courts quickly invalidated effective labor tactics like the sitdown strike that had initiated the battle of Flint, and the “democratic” system employed to establish legal representation by a union has morphed into a multi-billion industry of lawyers, salesmen and goons to gaslight, intimidate and even expel eligible voters.
When the Second World War ended, the “truce” with labor ended. Taft-Hartley was passed, over Truman’s veto, and additional effective labor tactics, like the secondary boycott, were rendered violations of the law. Recognizing the increased institutionalization of the labor movement, Taft-Hartley imposed hefthy fines on unions found guilty of fomenting wildcat strikes or supporting fellow unions with picketers. People fond of palaces on 16th Street felt threatened.
Not surprisingly, a defanged labor sought protection from the Dems, who proved extortionists more ruthless than the old Cosa Nostra. The two rode the path down together because the best they could muster was a call to return to the good ol’ days of the New Deal. Nobody under 60 was buying. Labor membership, with blows from the federal courts and the NRLB, continued to decline, and eventually reached the point where DLC Democrats like Clinton didn’t even bother to pretend they were “pro-labor.” Ever the marketer, Obama tried to sell card-check and walkin’ shoes to DC labor, and all they have to show is maybe a pic with a grinning Obama admiring his reflection in the camera lens.
That Left, of Blair and Flint, is long gone, and it all doesn’t go back to Woodstock like innumerable conservatives-in-sheeps’-clothing claim. The hopes of the American Left got reduced to whatever it took to keep up with the Joneses, with the plethora of stuff and “experiences” being sold by the Madmen. The CEO of GM claimed that, “what’s good for GM is good for America.” For Meany and the AFL-CIO, it became “what’s good for the boss, even if it’s profits from weapons like napalm, is good for the union.” The same attitude can be seen today in the attitude of building trades’ unions to resistance to data centers. It’s the same narrow-boundary view that has crippled labor for 90 years. When it became all about the Benjamins and more bennies rather than broader social issues, labor was on the road to doom.
Some thoughts on the Potholes on China’s Road to Socialism:
At the core of any economic system is resource extraction. Socialism as a concept is basically to turn the products of that extraction to the benefit of the society as a whole as opposed to the concentration of that societal wealth in the hands of the few. The granular elements of society progresses from individual, family, band/clan, tribe and language group. Self interest diminishes with progression from the individual on up to the larger population. Self interest is the enemy of socialism. It can be argued that this view of self interest is myopic and that kind of myopia is the real enemy. This is undoubtedly true. Unfortunately, for socialism, myopic self interest is ubiquitous.
The evolution of religion has progressed from god kings to a personal god but the real effect of religion has been to unite groups or whole societies around a shared self interest. In order for Socialism to become sustainable it has to be excepted as the next phase of religious evolution. All socialist attempts begin with a religious fervor but subsequent generations lose that religion and myopic self interest, even if not widely expressed will begin to tear the fabric of a society’s commitment to the whole.
The solution to this inevitable decline of commitment is coercion and the most sinister self interest to be found in Socialism is the accumulation of power. If this sounds familiar it is because all politics are a religious expression of power as all politics require heaps and gobs of belief by a group, tribe or language group.
re: architecture
via fb
1) “The Jesus the Redeemer Church in Turin, designed by Nicola Mosso, Leonardo Mosso, and Livio Norzi between 1954 and 1957, represents a striking example of post-war modernism in religious architecture. The church’s minimalist design features clean, geometric lines and the extensive use of exposed concrete and glass, creating a structure that emphasizes light and space. This approach reflects the optimism of the time, as well as the architects’ desire to redefine sacred architecture in a modern urban environment.”
https://www.facebook.com/architecturelab.magazine/posts/the-jesus-the-redeemer-church-in-turin-designed-by-nicola-mosso-leonardo-mosso-a/122219582528327232/
2) West African Modernism at MOMA
“Architects of Liberation. Modernism in Western Africa”
https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5906
Organized by Martino Stierli and Ikem Stanley Okoye with Mallory Cohen.
“During the unprecedented period of liberation and decolonization across Africa, many dreamed of a continent with a boundless future. Ghana gained independence from British rule in 1957, and in 1960—often called the Year of Africa—17 nations struggling for self-determination achieved political autonomy. This upheaval ushered in a boom in cultural production and experimentation in visual art, dance, and music. Architects of Liberation: Modernism in Western Africa is the first major museum exhibition to examine the role of architecture in shaping this historic change.
Newly independent African countries wanted to project—both inward and outward—a forward-looking, progressive, and cosmopolitan self-image, and modern architecture embodied this aspiration. A new architectural identity engaged with the political ideas of Pan-Africanism and Africanization, and was shaped by architects both from the continent and abroad.
Architectural drawings, models, and archival images, as well as newly commissioned site-specific photographs and videos, are among the exhibition’s 400 objects. Nearly all are being shown publicly for the first time. Spanning Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, and Cameroon, Architects of Liberation is a revealing look at a region reimagining its future.”
Re: MOMA exhibition–
From a time when the Global South looked to the West for artistic and architectural inspiration. That seems less likely now that the West finds itself in the grip of a deluded, power-mad elite.
re: Polymarket
Sorry if this is a duplicate: From June 30th
by Mark Goodwin and Whitney Webb
The Secret History of Polymarket – Part 1
Part I of a two-part series exposing the truth behind the world’s most popular prediction market and its dark ambitions to alter both markets and representative government forever
https://unlimitedhangout.com/2026/06/investigative-series/the-secret-history-of-polymarket-part-1/
Thank you, the piece catch’s many a fish.
For anyone interested, there’s a review in the latest foreign affairs of a book by a French critic who advocates abolishing representative democracy and instituting a system of citizen’s assemblies. The reviewer, a Columbia political science professor, none-too confidently bats away the more radical aspects of the argument, and while conceding the need for major procedural changes (ranked choice, an end to gerrymandering, publicly-funded elections, &c.), leaves the economic system quite alone from her criticism. Still, I found it remarkable that Foreign Affairs would have even engaged with such a radical proposal, even if to call it utopian or impractical. A sign of the times, perhaps.
Didn’t want to subscribe to read but my question would be how can such a system be corrupted, Who votes, how are they informed and who controls the information. How would citizen’s assemblies be chosen and bought?.
The problem with any political system is there can be no such thing as an impartial administration. Even if a system could be constructed that didn’t involve a belief structure would it be able to evolve to changing realities.
From Useful Idiots:
CNN’s Jake Tapper Humiliated for Zohran Mamdani Meltdown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd5gibkw7TU