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Links 7/4/2026

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Dorm Life Forever? The Problem with Micro-Living JSTOR (Micael T)

This spray-on powder can stop life-threatening bleeding in 1 second Science Daily (Kevin W)

Climate/Environment

Record sea temperatures in June push world into ‘uncharted’ waters Financial Times

Scientists fear seabird die-off as El Niño looms: ‘We don’t know how bad this will get’ Guardian

Plankton Decline Across the North East Atlantic Signals Failing Ocean Health Eco Magazine

In India’s Mountains, Climate Change Is Rewriting the Map of Disease Health Policy Watch

‘We are screwed’: People near data centers dread heat wave pollution Politico

Extreme weather is affecting AI: global AI data centers face threats from extreme heat Gelonghui Finance

China?

China’s housing market free-falls as buyers wait for floor prices Asia Times

Why the West Still Can’t Decode China’s Rise Arnaud Bertrand, Beijing Review (Chuck L)

China Second-Half Outlook: AI Supercycle Cuts Into the K-Shaped Economy Citigroup

Exclusive-Inside Taiwan’s nightmare scenario: Chinese blockade, earthquake, sabotage and invasion Global Banking and Finance

Japan

Traders Plot Worst-Case Scenario for Yen If Crisis Hits Japan Times

Africa

Record number of people displaced into neighbouring countries as Sudan conflict marks three years Oxfam

Expanding conflict drives record hunger in northern Nigeria Arab News

South of the Border

Cubans face endless blackouts, collapsing salaries and empty shops – but they’re refusing to give up Sky

Israel makes another move on the westrrn hemishere Venezualanalysis (Robin K)

‘It was a massacre’: Haiti gangs carry out mass killings across the country Guardian

European Disunion

EU Court of Justice allows criminal prosecution for reposting RT videos — judgement TASS. Micael T: “We must go to war with Putler to defend our freedom to criminal prosecution for listening to other news!”

German workers banned from taking sick leave without a medical note in tough reforms. Independent

Not everyone can act like sick ministers Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T: “About sickness benefit day. If you fall ill you deduct a certain percentage from you salary for 1-many days. Not ministers though. The rules of neoliberalism in action.”

Old Blighty

Keir Starmer suggests Andy Burnham borrow billions for defence Guardian (Kevin W)

Bank of England to push ahead with plan to limit hedge fund leverage Financial Times

Bankers and unions set for clash over possible Burnham tax raid on UK banks Guardian

Defaults on credit cards and other loans have hit the highest level since the financial crisis as British households struggle to make ends meet This is Money

Exclusive: British Museum made false claims about its removal of ‘Palestine’ from displays Middle East Eye

Old British fridges ‘cannot cope with the heat’ BBC

Balkans

Flamingos, Jared Kushner, and Albania’s fight against Trump’s Resorts openDemocracy (Robin K)

Israel v. The Resistance

Explaining the Numbers in Gaza Karen Kwaitkowski. Important. A well-supported analysis that concludes that “well over a million” Gazans have died in Israel’s genocide.

Israel Exposed War Crimes Archive (guurst)

Palestinian goalkeeper killed by Israel in Gaza as Fifa faces fresh calls to act Middle East Eye (resilc)

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The Grand Bargain Is Ending Brandon Weichert

How Florida’s Cuban Diaspora and the Israeli Lobby Came Together — and Are Coming Apart Intercept (resilc)

Huckabee: Israel ‘the 436th congressional district’ of US Responsible Statecraft (Kevin W)

Russia and China were quietly taking over helium markets. Then Iran blew them up for everyone else Kevin Walmsley (guurst)

From Mohamed A-Bukhai @kwnn_yemen on Twitter (hat tip Chuck L). Twitter not allowing embedding “Visibility limited: this Post may violate X’s rules against Violent Speech”. Click through for full tweet.

Translated from ArabicFinal Warning Message to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:

This is the last chance, and it cannot tolerate any delay or hesitation. Our people’s patience has run out, and there is no longer room for the situation to continue as it is….

Saudi Arabia is evading the obligations of peace in Yemen and is blaming Washington, claiming that our support and stance on Gaza is the reason for the obstruction

We say clearly: Our options are open, and we will not stand idly by if Washington and Riyadh continue this maneuvering

To everyone who takes measures to restrict our people in their livelihood, the equation of bank for bank, airport for airport, and port for port has not been canceled, and this game will not continue, and our people will not submit to economic blackmail and will confront and thwart all conspiracies

We will impose the equation of an eye for an eye and a siege for a siege
And airport for airport

We warn you: Saudi airspace is approaching complete closure 🔥

New Not-So-Cold War

John Mearsheimer: The End of Russian Restraint & New U.S. Grand Strategy Glenn Diesen, YouTube

John Helmer: Ukraine Is Becoming a FIRING PLATFORM WITHOUT Any People Dialogue Works, YouTube

The NY Times Lies About Russian and Ukrainian Casualties Sonar 21 (Kevin W)

Georgia’s only oil refinery said Wednesday that it plans to stop processing Russian crude by the end of this summer in order to avoid being hit by European sanctions Moscow Times

Imperial Collapse Watch

Text – S.4367 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): Hot Rotisserie Chicken Act Library of Congress (resilc)

TRUMP’S $1BN CRYPTO FORTUNE, VANCE-TRUMP RIFT & TUCKER TO MAKE OWN PARTY — w/ Robert Barnes YouTube. Barnes: “Most corrupt in American history.” Vikas S: “Plugged-in people know this, but the details are damning.”

New Poll: Nearly Half of Americans Don’t Know What America’s 250th Is Celebrating Cato. resilc: “Isn’t it Amazon Prime week??”

We became the late 18th Century British. What now? Responsible Statecraft (resilc)

How Many People Have Ever Lived in the United States? Davis Fetz (resilc)

The Pitfalls of a ‘Middle Ground’ Strategy Daniel Larison

Trump 2.0

Trump refuses to renew US-Canada-Mexico trade pact he once championed Guardian

Air Force major arrested after calling for Trump impeachment outside Capitol The Hill (resilc)

U.S. Olympic canoeist David Hearn charged with damaging Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool NBC (Kevin W)

Federal nuclear agency moves to relax radiation exposure rules Washington Post

Our No Longer Free Press

Public Opinion: Cornered by the Many, Controlled by the Few Finn Andreen (Micael T)

Economy

The world is lurching from one economic crisis to the next. What should we expect from our government? Guardian

Global monetary tightening and the fragility behind it ODI Global

U.S. adds just 57,000 jobs in June, a worrying sign as wage growth remains slow NBC

Mr. Market Needs a Therapist

Yet another ‘quant tremor’ strikes systematic investors Financial Times

AI Bubble Fears Grow as Michael Burry, Top Economists Sound Alarm FirstPost

AI Debt Deluge Makes Credit Market Look Safer While Masking Risk Bloomberg

AI hopes and fears dominate global central bank meet Reuters

AI

The AI Race Nobody Can Win Foreign Affairs. Robin K: “Toward the end when the discussion turns to corporate governance, bubbles, inflation, and central banks, things seem to go wobbly.”

Programmer “Productivity”: CHART OF THE DAY Brad DeLong. Important tidbit at the top of how the “The brand-new VW ElectricMicroBus that replaces the 22-year-old Subaru” makes driving more difficult.

Claude Helped a Hacker Find a Way to Issue Tickets to Almost Every US Music Festival Wired (resilc)

Ambani-Trump Jr. investigation encountered a Google AI surprise ProPublica. “Google, the proprietor of the world’s primary research tool, has rolled out AI Overviews that can indiscriminately take in fake material and authoritatively spit it back out as real.” (Kevin W).

The Bezzle

SpaceX Is Junk. That’s What the Bond Market Says Bloomberg

S2 Capital dissolves $400M first fund with “no return of capital” TheRealDeal (albrt)

Private Credit Keeps $14 Billion Trapped in Bid to Outlast Storm Bloomberg

What Private Credit Is, and Why Investors Are So Worried About It New York Times (resilc)

Guillotine Watch

Police hunt Ukrainian woman over Monaco bombing Agence France-Presse

Musk demanded proof people died from USAID cuts. He got it — and lost it. Judd Legum

Class Warfare

Inside the Luddite Festival Harnessing Gen Z’s Rage Against Big Tech Wired (resilc)

The Fun Shortage Is Real, and It’s Making America Miserable Bloomberg

We Crunched the Data: There’s a Grocery Price Emergency in America New York Times (resilc)

Average New Car Prices Hit Record High Of $51,974, But People Are Still Rushing To Buy Them Jalopnik (resilc)

This Is RUINING the Trades… YouTube (resilc)

Antidote du jour (Tracie H):

And a bonus (Chuck L):

A second bonus:

And a third:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here

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4 comments

  1. The Rev Kev

    ‘Dudes Posting Their W’s
    Pubity
    @DudespostingWs
    Dude is rock climbing when a mountain goat casually pulls up beside him. Honestly insane that these animals just live like this.’

    Wait. Did that Mountain Goat just use that guy as a salt lick?

    Reply ↓
  2. dearieme

    “We became the late 18th Century British.”

    Come now; your monarch has always had far more power than ever George III had – just read your own Constitution.

    As for Congress, could it be more corrupt than the old, unreformed Houses of Parliament? It’s certainly a possibility though I don’t know of a metric for such things. AIPAC money and its power perhaps?

    Navy: the Royal Navy was not an obsolete fleet that needed to cower hundreds of miles off enemy shores.
    Army: The USA copied the British tradition of disapproving of large standing armies but the British lived up to that tradition rather than building an army that was outrageously expensive but still too small for the duties the politicians wished to assign to it.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Rev Kev

      I was thinking earlier today the irony in that America started off as a collection of States which were fighting the superpower of the day which had troops and bases all around the world. Now 250 years later, it is America that is the superpower that has troops and bases all around the world. I think that those Revolutionary-era soldiers& militia would be horrified at how their revolution was betrayed. More so when they could have seen how their Constitution with its Bill of Rights has been shredded. This was not what they fought for.

      Reply ↓
  3. vao

    Somewhat related to the prohibition of reposting RT videos and information, and definitely in line with the EU as a repressive censorship regime:

    Germany has its own FOIA, called Informationsfreiheitsgesetz (IFG). It is being reformed by the ruling CDU/CSU/SPD coalition. The main highlights of the proposed revision are as follows:

    1) In the future, only individuals may present requests for documents and information from the government or governmental agencies. Associations and other legal entities will be entirely barred from doing so.

    2) Individuals presenting a request will have to demonstrate a personal, justified interest in the information thus seeked.

    3) The fee for fulfilling the request will no longer be capped at €500, but must cover the costs of the search to an unlimited amount.

    4) The current IFG lists 30 exceptions to the freedom of obtaining information; these may be extended by excluding entire domains such as energy, health, culture, media.

    5) It is being pondered to limit the possibility to present requests to German and other EU citizens residing in Germany.

    The revision is partly inspired by the reform of a similar law valid for the Land of Berlin, carried out by a regional CDU/SPD coalition (again), and that severely restricts the circumstances and areas about which official information can be handed out.

    It has been noted that in the past at least one minister and some other officials pushing for the revision had the spotlight thrown on them for various scandals which were uncovered precisely thanks to the recourse to the IFG…

    Reply ↓

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