America is a Way to See The Empty Cup
How English abolished time travel Kaimataara
What Cars Are You Sick Of Seeing On The Road? Jalopnik
Ferrari and BMW join Tesla, China in switch from copper to cheaper aluminum Reuters
Hobbit-like humans may have scavenged Komodo dragons’ leftovers to survive CNN
Climate/Environment
Wildfires rage in Portugal, Greece and Spain while Greek authorities warn of toxic smoke NBC News
Heatwaves are killing tens of thousands in India. Officials are barely counting them Euronews
Severe storms impact many areas on the Fourth, leaving more than 1M without power Balanced Weather
Severe flooding leaves a trail of death and destruction in West Africa RFI
Some of the most terrifying and violent storm conditions that are possible on this planet are occurring right now on the Pacific island of Rota.
At 180 MPH (290 kph) and with eyewall mesovortex gusts potentially as high as ~220 MPH (355 kph), Category 5 Super Typhoon Bavi is… pic.twitter.com/zUluGM3Zib
— Backpirch Weather (@BackpirchCrew) July 5, 2026
There are growing indications that large, intense, & perhaps record-breaking mid-atmospheric high pressure system (aka a “heat dome”) will develop somewhere between Rockies & Central Plains by mid-Jul. This could bring a widespread & severe heatwave across much of the U.S. pic.twitter.com/U4bLH89XQx
— Daniel Swain (@Weather_West) July 5, 2026
Breaking News!
Code: y-axis alert!Global sea-surface temperatures are at 21.00°C, and have now set a new daily record high for the 33rd day in a row, more than 0.08°C above the previous record high, set in 2024.
The Climate 8-ball is drunk again. pic.twitter.com/TP0WanLNhn
— Prof. Eliot Jacobson (@EliotJacobson) July 5, 2026
The World Has an Anchovy Problem Bloomberg
Those in Charge Have No Plan Surviving Leviathan with Peter Gelderloos
China?
CHINA KEEPS THE U.S. AND JAPAN COOL. And most other places. The Chinese make more than 80% of the world’s air-conditioners. And they could… stop.
The world’s biggest fan clubs for air-conditioning are the United States, and two Asian allies/ vassals, Japan and South Korea. In… pic.twitter.com/ACta89Fyqj
— Nury Vittachi (@NuryVittachi) July 6, 2026
China test fires missile into Pacific, alarming regional powers Channel News Asia
American Decline, Chinese Exposure Sinocism
Top-Tier Cities Overtake Regional Hubs to Drive China Property Sales Caixin Global
This is brilliant and should be studied by central bankers everywhere! Peoples Bank of China was the first to deflate a massive, leveraged housing bubble without a single quarter of economic contraction or loss of growth momentum in the real economy.
A success for the history… https://t.co/zr5yvnCw3o— Kathleen Tyson (@Kathleen_Tyson_) July 5, 2026
India
GoDaddy Sounds Alarm Over How India Law Would Upend Internet Privacy Everywhere Gizmodo
Syraqistan
Netanyahu says no reconstruction in Gaza before Hamas disarmament, as two killed in latest strikes New Arab
Hamas is dead and finished. But Israel continues to pretend it is alive to continue the genocide. A brilliant article in Foreign Affairs by Jaser AbuMousa lays out the case:
1) Israel has killed nearly the entire pre-October 7 leadership. Sinwar, Haniyeh, Deif, Mohammed Sinwar,…
— Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (@academic_la) July 5, 2026
Calls for killing of Trump at funeral of Iran supreme leader Ali Khamenei The Guardian
EGS 47 / 26 – No Qatari LNG Until September | OPEC+ Retakes Market Shares? | Canada’s West Coast Oil Megadeal | Heat Dome Melts the US Grid Energy Geopolitics & Statecraft
Africa
Why the Giant of Africa Loves Israel The Key
Mali and Syria: Similarities, Differences, and the War on Terror Muftah Magazine
Turkiye builds ‘spaceport’ in Somalia setting off alarms in Israel The Cradle
Old Blighty
Cops probe claims of ‘missing £1.5m’ from Indy campaign group with close links to SNP Daily Record
Private Capital in UK Defence The Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies
Fancy spending a heatwave in a former office block? That’s the reality for thousands of families Big Issue
UK Cuts Infrastructure Spending to Fund Nukes; Germany’s Railways Collapse Alex Christoforou
European Disunion
Germany bolsters ballistic missile defense with expanded Arrow-3 coverage Interesting Engineering
Germany’s Dangerous Return to Strategic Overconfidence Kautilya The Contemplator
The US is fuelling the growth of an ISIS-style terrorist group in Europe: in Albania, the MEK is recruiting child soldiers Alireza Niknam (translation via GeoPolitiQ)
Thousands swarm the streets of Tirana in major ‘Pink Flamingo’ anti-government protests Euronews
🚨‼️🇷🇺🇪🇺 TRUTH DOES NOT MATTER ANYMORE?!
The EU is punishing 3 individuals for reposting Russia Today Germany on their blog and has ruled that reposting content from sanctioned Russian media is forbidden and can result in criminal prosecution. Importantly it does not matter if a… pic.twitter.com/pWbJbGKDBT
— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) July 5, 2026
New Not-So-Cold War
Russian MOD lists targets in latest Ukraine barrage RT
Finnish Line The Duran. “The EU Cool Kids Ongoing Wish For A War With Russia May Finally Come Through Finland.”
Lithuania Aims to Be ‘Part of Nuclear Deterrence’ Against Russia: President The Defense Post
Robot race Events in Ukraine
Why’d Putin & Lavrov Send Such Pleasant Greetings On The US’ 250th Independence Day? Andrew Korybko
Why Can’t the Russian’s Defeat Ukraine? Larry Johnson
Imperial Collapse Watch
If Non-Offensive Defense Ended the Cold War… Un-Diplomatic
South of the Border
The White Helmets Invade Venezuela Kit Klarenberg
Trump 2.0
Trump to host opening bell ceremony Monday to celebrate Trump Accounts The Hill
Trump memecoin investors lost $3.8 billion, analysis finds TechCrunch
Democrats Suck
McMorrow suspends campaign for Michigan Senate seat The Hill
How Hakeem Jeffries is handling the most divisive issue in Democratic politics Politico
Sorry, Democrats: Your Midterm Hopes Are Probably Overblown NOTUS
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
The Accelerationists
The Room at Aspen Notes from the Circus
Sports Desk
Sources: President Trump, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, and White House task force head Andrew Giuliani put together a team of elite lawyers — from outside the government — to challenge the Flo Balogun red card. Specifically they challenged the use of slow motion instant…
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) July 5, 2026
Tour de France stage to go ahead with changes as fires ravage southern Europe France24
Our Famously Free Press
The Triumphalism Trap: How Anti-Imperialist Media Manufactures Its Own Consent BettBeat
CNBC Helps SpaceX Pull Off Trillion-Dollar Pump-and-Dump FAIR
Healthcare?
Climate Change Is Already at the Bedside. Why Aren’t We Learning About It? MedPage Today
Casino Nation
“Morally reprehensible”: Prediction Markets Offer Bets on Wildfires Mother Jones
AI
On the Production and Dissemination of Knowledge in the AI Era The Archimedean Point
New Google commercial imagines a Declaration of Independence written with help from AI TechCrunch
How and why to de-Google your life Blood in the Machine
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
“New Google commercial imagines a Declaration of Independence written with help from AI”
Cute. Very cute. Making everything look trendy and super-techy. But they miss one important thing. If Google had existed back, then it would have rated out the Founding Fathers to the British who would have rounded them up with Google geolocating them and then transported them to Britain to stand trial for treason. Why would Google do such a thing? Why to preserve the status quo of course so that their profits were not disturbed by a nasty rebellion.
Sometimes I think of AI as meaning ACME Industries.
Wile E. Coyote : ACME Industries product tester. / ;)
The decline of not just the US empire but of the West: brought to you by neoconservative foreign policy and neoliberal economics.
Reagan brought the neoliberal economists into power in govt. Milton Friedman and the Chicago school of economics, the “fresh water” school.
Clinton and W.Bush combined brought the neoconservative foreign policy theorists into power in govt. See the Project for the New American Century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
The Dems when in power did nothing to change the direction set by the neoliberals and neoconservatives. The Dems when in power continued those GOP initiated policies. The uniparty in action.
EU and UK leaders followed suit.
/my 2 cents
adding: Reagan and GHWBush, Bush Sr., called the neoconservatives “the crazies” for wanting to get the US bogged down in endless ME wars outside of US interests.
When Bush Sr. went into Iraq after Iraq attacked the Kuwait he pushed Iraq out of Kuwait and then came home, job done. The first Gulf War was over. The neocons were furious with him for leaving Iraq. (Thinking about it now, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn they threw their weight behind Clinton in the 1992 election. Clinton went on the sanction Iraq, bomb Kosovo and Serbia, etc.)
I note that Bush Sr. was the last President that was actually a combat vet and who knew what war was all about after fighting in the Pacific. All those since have never gone near the military with men like Clinton, Bush jr. and Trump doing an exit, stage left when called upon to maybe do their bit-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._W._Bush#World_War_II
Reading Collapse about the fall of the Soviet Union gave me a great deal of appreciation for Bush Sr. We’d live in a different and probably much better world if he had won in ’92. Not that he was a great guy by any means, but he was a statesman more capable of vision than Clinton, and the early-mid 90’s was a pivotal point in history.
my first wife was from the redneck/roughneck side of the Bush crimenfamilia.(her grandad’s name was George Bush, too,lol). they got screwed out of the west texas oil money they had worked for by the Kennebunkport Wing of the family.
nevertheless, GHW Bush showed up at her grandmother’s funeral in Huntsville, Texas…with secret service in the trees, and everything.
up until that point i thought her tales were full o shite,lol.
as far as rich and powerful folks go, he seemed almost decent.
her grandad said he paid for the funeral.
Sr. controlled the White House for 28 years. As Reagan’s control person 8 years; himself 4 years; as Clinton’s partner in crime (Mena Airport) 8 years; his control of Jr. for 8 years. He was in Dallas on 11/22/1963. He was a 9/11 mastermind. His daddy laundered money for the not seas.
A lot of what you say is true. But the guy was a realist and was not a clown. And when you get a clown in the White House, he turns it into his own personal circus.
Or a clown in Number 10, Downing St.
Or a clown in the Élysée Palace.
Or a clown in the Federal Chancellery.
Or a clown in the Lodge.
etc.
etc.
Rumors of shady dealings later in life seem wildly at odds with the bravery(volunteered for the Navy on his 18th birthday, pilot, bona fide combat veteran) and intelligence(graduated Yale in two and a half years) displayed in his early days. Add to that substantial wealth, and it becomes hard to imagine a person of such character and ability involved in anything dirty or nefarious.
Maybe someday evidence will appear, but now it seems that a good man’s reputation was trashed to bring us Blowjob Bill
It’s somewhat forgotten now, it happened such a long time ago, but I recall bill barr helping bushsr. come to his senses, and pardon all the principals in the Iran-contra affair on Christmas Eve, 1992. The pardon helped save the white, yankee ass of the sitting president, and was the best Christmas present that bushsr. ever gave himself. Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells.
It really feels like there were “bad” electoral outcomes that might have turned out better for us than the supposedly “good” outcomes we got. If Bush Sr. had been re-elected in ’92, would Russia have been able to be eased into the western alliance rather than given shock treatment and turned back into an adversary? If Bob Dole had defeated Clinton in ’96, could we have dodged the worst of Clinton’s FIRE sector “innovations” and maybe the overly rapid commercialization/corporatization of the internet (and getting Dubya in 2000)? If Trump had been re-elected over Biden in 2020, would we be rid of him by now and could the establishment Republicans have kept him under tighter control?
All the supposed positive developments the Ds promised in those elections, better Supreme Court justices, safeguarding abortion rights, Medicare for all, strengthening the rights of labor, etc., were never delivered on. In retrospect, we might have been better losing at least some of those elections.
AfD held a party convention. Here is a take from Anti-Spiegel.
The AfD elects a Russia-hater as deputy party leader!
As expected, the AfD’s transatlantic-militarist course has further solidified at the federal party convention in Erfurt. This is particularly evident in the fact that Sven Tritschler—a staunch advocate of precisely this course—was elected deputy party leader.
Tritschler has described the German government’s military support for Ukraine as “morally right” and has employed local AfD politician Tim Schramm, who himself fought on the Ukrainian side against Russia.
ℹ️Furthermore, Tritschler maintains a very close relationship with Alice Weidel, which became clear during their joint campaign tour in North Rhine-Westphalia. A video was also produced during this tour, showing Weidel, Schramm, and Tritschler in a relaxed, friendly atmosphere.
This makes it clear that Alice Weidel has no problem with those who hate Russians within the party—she may even have orchestrated the election of her confidant herself, or at least supported it. Added to this is the fact that she was able to improve her election results, while the peace-oriented Tino Chrupalla lost 10 percentage points. By now, at the very latest, it must be clear to everyone that the AfD is not a peace party!
Maybe that is a deal that they have made. That they will leave foreign policy as it is in exchange for being given power to rule in Germany. For the Globalists, that would be a pretty good deal for them. Of course it is Germany’s foreign policy that is wrecking Germany at home but it may be that the AfD that will have to try to limit the damage and will bear the fault if they can’t. Being anti-immigrant at least will get them in Trump’s good books as that is one of his obsessions.
Judging AfD by their equivalent Sweden Democrats AfD will also actively wreck the economy and continue with mass immigration. AfD is also a far-right party so they will do their utmost, just like Sweden Democrats, to screw employees and poor over as hard as they can. They need the immigrants to blame for the immiseration.
AfD = Arslocher fur Diktatur = Arseholes for Dictatorship
Not a lot of people know that…
War with RU?
Judge Napolitano and Alastair Crooke.
Alastair Crooke : Russia Ready For War With Europe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9RrX1Z25TI
Crooke sounds more alarmed than I recall hearing before. The fools in charge of EU countries will ignore what he is saying, imo. The march of folly.
“Crooke sounds more alarmed than I recall hearing before.”
And perhaps even more alarming is this discussion hosted by Glenn Diesen: John Mearsheimer & Sergey Karaganov: Nuclear Strike on Europe to Restore Deterrence
Karaganov’s visceral loathing of Europe, most particularly Germany, is absolutely incandescent, describing Europe as the principal source of the world’s evils for the last 500 years. He has a point.
That’s a deflection. It’s the United States that is the principal source of worlds evils since the second world war. But Americans really love finding excuses, and outside parties to put the blame on.
He also has a sore spot about Japan which might be explained by the 1904 Russo-Japanese War.
And then 30 years later there came another Japanese expansionist war.
per Wiki:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_border_conflicts
“war is merely the continuation of politics by other means,” to quote Clausewitz
One of Clausewitz’s most famous lines:
“No one starts a war–or rather, no one in his sense ought to do so–without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by the war and how he intends to conduct it.” ― Carl Von Clausewitz
I do not think the Ukr and the Iran wars show signs of intelligent life in the West’s current leaders. / my 2 cents.
Lee and Flora, thank you both for the links above. They’re both important — and alarming, given the insane stupidity of what’s going on.
I would suggest to listen to MARK SLEBODA talking to a dude called CANADIAN PREPPER.
At least the second half. Sleboda rebuts all the current PR of RU economic downfall or military crisis.
RU has zero need to divert from their current path.
“Why Doesn’t Putin Just Finish It?….”
A discussion with Canadian Prepper
04/07/26
61 min.
https://marksleboda.substack.com/p/why-doesnt-putin-just-finish-it
What is there that Europe can do to inflict that much damage to RU that RU would change strategy?
Nothing.
Except EU starting a nuclear war. Which is the only thing RU according to Sleboda is afraid of.
p.s. Sleboda explains that nobody in the Kremlin cares what KARAGANOV says.
The people who seem to buy most into the new scare PR by the West – according to Sleboda – are the pro-Russians in the alt. media sphere. He has a point there.
There is one question I cannot answer 100% which is raised by STEVE JERMY in his talk with GLENN DIESEN yesterday.
Steve Jermy: Warning! NATO Can’t Win a War with Russia
05/07/26
47 min.
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/steve-jermy-warning-nato-cant-win
I don’t know how much info Sleboda has on Jermy´s argument:
Jeremy (the former Royal Navy Captain) claims that future EU drones like British-built with 240kg warheads (TOMAHAWKS have I think 450kg, afaik most Ukrainian drones vary between 3-120kg) deployed in Ukraine would be regarded as threat by RU in a way that they strike EU preemptively.
However I don´t buy that since drone warfare is much more than just size of drones and the current drone war by the West has achieved almost nothing.
I thought the “Triumphalist Trap” was fine work, part of my favorite category of writing, criticism of the left from the left, which keeps us sharp and open-minded. I was reminded of another reason to prefer analysis to advocacy the other day, when Dr. Gerald Horne appeared on Black Agenda Report. He was discussing historical falsification, using the metaphor of a doctor. If we want our doctor to make a correct diagnosis and treat the illness in an appropriate way, we have to be honest with him or her about our medical history; just so with our global ills.
Though, really, I don’t know how “left” campists are, who merely reify other sources of established power. It’s a bit like someone who left the religion of their youth behind, but instead of having this free their minds, took to worshipping the devil.
I was really hoping this piece would be something else: A critique of the fantasy of non-Western/global South solidarity against the empire. It does tangentially touch on this question, but only to underline anti-imperialist commentators’ moral hypocrisy regarding individual states:
If the author(s) had just said that commentators’ omissions of the moral shortcomings of governments resisting empire were discrediting, it would have been a much more coherent argument (though perhaps one that decades of bad-faith use have prejudiced readers against) than the clever/cute invocation of Manufacturing Consent.
One can’t manufacture consent for an opposing government of a foreign country, because consent can only be to the government under which one’s audience finds itself. “Counter-consent” is a meaningless term. Me loving the Ayatollah does not do anything for the Ayatollah. Do the author(s) believe that Western anti-imperialist fervor (which is what they’re talking about) is somehow making its way back to the countries in question, and emboldening their governments? They do not make this argument, because it would be ridiculous, but without some such claim the question of consent is neither here nor there.
Well, presumably the problem with “imperialism” is that it imposes a government on people that they have not chosen for themselves. It doesn’t mean that left to themselves the same people will choose a better one. It just means it’s not up to us.
I’m getting a particularly bad full-screen pop-up ad on NC. It doesn’t have a “close” option, so I have to shut down my browser and restart every time it pops up. Anyone else experiencing this? I am using a phone.
I’m not using a phone browser, I use a laptop.
Whenever I get a popup ad that doesn’t seem to have a close ‘x’ button then if I the shrink the screen resolution using the +/- enlarge/shrink browser feature the ‘x’ button will appear at the top of the ad. Say I reduce the screen resolution from 100% to 80% then the ‘x’ will appear and I can close it that way.
It’s annoying to have to do this but it works in my situation. Not sure about phones.
I use Brave. No ads!
Re Ferrari and BMW–the latter now has humanoid robots at our local plant. Press release
https://www.figure.ai/news/f-03-at-bmw
They say their supposedly super high tech manufacturing needs robots that can move rather than being bolted to fixed positions.
Part of their manufacturing is to have parts delivered just in time from satellite suppliers via the nearby freeway. When diesel runs out “aieeeee!!”?
German ingenuity will doubtless work this out.
I try to keep in mind that Trump lives in a bubble within a bubble within a bubble and that he is experiencing serious cognitive issues.
The results of this are not likely to be positive.
I think this is true of any president, probably of any country – and throughout all history of every sort of rule by people. And one of many good reasons why we need to do away with electoral and representative politics. I would not be surprised if all the AI corps see governance by AI as the ultimate end-goal and they would have a very strong argument for it.
And one of many good reasons why we need to do away with electoral and representative politics.
Yeah, No… We need to get back to it, not further away. Do you also think that CBDC’s are “practical”?
To your point, what is the “very strong argument” alluded to?
That leaders, whether they be kings, emperors or presidents, live within a bubble within a bubble within a bubble and, I would argue, will therefore experience cognitive issues.
Think about it. Everyone around them lies to them, they lose grasp of truth, lose contact with reality.
“The White Helmets Invade Venezuela”
Since rescuers have pulled everybody alive that they can the past ten days or so, now would be a good time to thank the White Helmets, give them a farewell party, a basket of fruit and send them back to Syria. if they stay any longer, then all they are doing is recruiting. So will we see a Venezuela chapter of the White Helmets? I’m sure that their buddies the Israelis will help them out here.
Speaker Mike Johnson still yammering away about the SAVE act:
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5954031-save-america-act-house-vote-2/
Clearly, this guy ought to be running for dog catcher, not House majority leader. It’s got zero chance to get 50 votes in the Senate, especially with Mitch McConnell in the hospital and possibly done for good.
And then there is the Senate Parliamentarian who will likely rule any non-revenue impacting measures as “non-germane” and toss this latest attempt at unconstitutional hijinks into the garbage.
All he will accomplish is to waste precious legislative time when other things are needed, like agency appropriations bills. It is shockingly obvious that this stooge is Taco’s minion, with no independent thoughts or will.
Kevin McCarthy enters the chat – ‘So do you guys miss me yet?’
But Mike Johnson is pretty bad. He had just been elected Speaker and the first thing he did was to swear his loyalty to Israel.
The point being that Mike Johnson is still Speaker of the House, Trump is still POTUS, and the Democrats still haven’t recaptured Congress.
Everywhere Democrats look, there’s low hanging fruit waiting to be harvested. Sadly, the DNC fields some of the shortest candidates imaginable…
The DNC is like a batter in a game of softball who keeps looking at fat pitches right over the plate.
The latest evidence of Johnson toadying up to Trump is vague threats of bringing up some sort of legislation to address the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship. Never mind that the court held that Trump’s EO was unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment. There is no legislation that will pass constitutional muster, and Johnson, as a lawyer, must know that “you can’t get there from here.” Therefore, he is engaging in classic “bad faith” behavior.
Likely it’s either lip service to please Taco, or worse, a real attempt to pass something that will be prima facie unconstitutional the minute it is signed. Hoping, of course, that it gets held up in the courts for years until it is ultimately disposed of by the Supreme Court, all the while causing real harm unless an injunction is granted at the early stages.
People like Johnson (and he has plenty of friends on both sides of the aisle) who engage in this sort of bad-faith cynical dealing, intentionally trying to pass defective legislation that they know is illegal and unconstitutional, or at best doomed to fail in the Senate, ought to be strung up and boiled in Beezlenut oil, in a public forum where we can all watch them suffer while we eat popcorn. Or better yet, we get to eat them.
We should all start to practice saying the following phrase:
House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.
I’m sorry. When I say out loud ‘Hakeem Jeffries’ it sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball. / ;)
Who is also in the tank for the Zionist entity.
Hakeem “Israel today, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever” Jeffries. I’ll be surprised if that fails to surface in an anti-Jeffries ad someday.
And deliberately evoking the famous Wallace “segregation today…” Line. What was he thinking?
Wonder what sort of Ploymarket bets Trump Organzation(tm) and it’s pals made on Folorian Balogun’s Red Card reversal, and this evening’s game.
Really, as I boycotted the Fourth, I should do the same with the game. Bu bu buh but….
The US has a right to impose itself on anyone’s space and so does falorin.
For better or worse, it’s tainted, I’d benefit from the analysis of a futbol o phile since I don’t know what degree of offense was committed, maybe it really was a bad call…
The foul was harsh, but it seemed clearly unintentional and done at such speed that the ref didn’t even consider it a yellow at first. Only after viewing it in slo-mo did the ref give a red. I think most Americans think it clearly could have been a just a yellow for lack of intent. Team Trump’s stepping in and getting the red card suspended clearly reeks of favoritism considering how buddy-buddy Trump and Infantino are (both widely loathed and corrupt). Additionally, the US was the aggrieved team with a chip on its shoulder beforehand, but now the Belgians get that extra motivation. It also messes with the preparation of the US team in particular. The U.S. team and Balogan had been dealing with the issue in a most respectable and dignified manner before Team Trump intervened.
Here is some informed commentary from flashscore, EXCLUSIVE: Hackett on ‘very poor’ refereeing in France win & other contentious decisions.
This is an interesting analysis of the officiating during the first knockout round.
Apparently Trump had to make three phone calls to get that call reversed. But it is a bad look for the US.
No, it was intentional. Check this image out-
https://www.moonofalabama.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/fifared.jpg
And with that, FIFA’s reputation will be further in the toilet.
“US Air Force Engineer Charged With Sawing Down Flock Surveillance Cameras Receives Thousands of Dollars from Supporters Across the Country”
Laser pens can damage surveillance cameras.
The new pipeline from Alberta through southern BC will punch through our property AGAIN right beside the Trans Mountain pipeline that began in 2018 and started pumping in 2025. At that time, they destroyed the orchard and put back tiny trees that have yet to produce fruit and halved the size of the area overall. This time they will destroy all the trees, bushes and plants and we will be forbidden to do anything with the land. One third of our property will no longer be ours. This piece has the only good soil on the place. The rest of the land rises quite quickly from there and becomes very rocky and cannot support trees or gardens.
Our self-sufficiency will be gone. The reason we bought this place will be gone. The value of the property will be gone. Our ability to sell and eventually move into town into some small place to finish out our lives will be gone. I’m 78 years old and I am immunocompromised. I am totally defeated as of now. There is nothing we can do to stop this. I give up.
Beyond words, Ann.
that sucks big hairy, Ann.
its also one of my greatest fears.
back home, north of houston, when i was 12 or so they put in a huge highline right across the road from our house.
one of the reasons for moving to this particular far place was that there was nothing here any of the big boys wanted. no timber, gold, oil, or even a railroad.
turns out there was frac sand,lol.
and water underground.
a natgas pipeline went in to my west and north a few year sago. we didnt know about it until the trucks and equipment showed up, since it didnt cross my place.
now, there’s 3 new high voltage lines in the county that werent there 10 years ago, and another slated for the san saba river valley that has everybody up in arms.
the local elites spent a long time doing a sort of performative whisper campaign about the high radon in the well water…mostly bullshit…but it has kept the big cities from tapping into our aquifer, so far.
we thought we had gone far enough out.
but y’all are even further out, it seems, and they found you anyways.
i’ll hoist a frozen mason jar of shiner in yer general direction this afternoon.
I was going to make an Anarcho Syndicalist suggestion, but self-censored.
If this was done through eminent domain rules, does Canada have just compensation laws? By removing the orchards etc. the State has removed your source of support.
The lesson to the rest of us to be gained from your experience is to never assume safety.
What you call eminent domain in the US is called expropriation in Canada. It typically involves offers of compensation, though I am not a lawyer and do not know the details of the process.
I don’t know what to say. So sorry to hear this.
Even in the US the eminent domain laws require payment (supposedly at market value) for taking private property by corporations or the govt. for public purposes.
Were you paid nothing for the taking of your land? Was your land effectively stolen? If so, yikes!
Ask an American Indian how that eminent domain thing is working out for them.
I know what you’re saying but I think in this case it’s an apples-to-oranges comparison. Presumably Canada recognizes title deed ownership and other Canadian govt paperwork for its citizens. If not, then ‘Katie bar the door’, as we say in the US.
Adding for non-US readers, an explanation of the phrase.
Katy bar the door
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/katy-bar-the-door.html
There has not been a “Kim Stanley Robinson” event in India … yet. There has been such an event on a smaller and more drawn out scale in Europe, but that may be simply because Europe counts and reports more openly than India has ..so far. When the electricity grid crunch comes during the coming heat wave or the next or the next, will it be data centers or people that are the first priority? Looks to me that people, the “right” people, have to die in large numbers, thousands, ten of thousands to actually get the attention of the oligarchs. What will be their response? Well, the herd needs thinning but we must take care that more of “them” than “us” are among the dead. Note: Look into investment opportunities in potential cemetery land, mortuaries, and crematories.It may be time to wrap up that sector.
And so it goes.
I missed this when it came out a few weeks ago, but The Guardian published a letter from several prominent “mainstream” economists like Joseph Stiglitz and some of the better known degrowth advocates. The letter begins by laying out three well-known facts:
1) the dominant economic system in the world today leaves 10% of the world’s population in deep poverty without decent shelter and adequate food;
2) the dominant economic system is rendering the biosphere incapable of supporting this human civilization;
3) the growth produced by this economic system is exacerbating both problems because a tiny elite is all that benefits from the growth, and that growth is worsening the problem of exceeding planetary boundaries.
They then lay out their goal and methodology:
Here’s a broad outline of some of their policy proposals:
The group has a website with more specifics and background. Here are some of the participants:
Dear Mr Stiglitz, I want a rainbow pony that poops magic skittles and sings like Pavarotti.
Please have it delivered before noon tomorrow.
The odds of my winning the Lotto are a lot higher than the odds of a rational response to the polycrisis being adopted.
Reality has no place in the decision making of the Powers That Be.
Yes. It is time for the return of the Anarcho Syndicalist action groups.
We could use a Durruti right about now.
We could us a Durruti right about now.
Articles that talk in terms of what “we need to” do are already flying away from reality at a high velocity. Even worse when the headline uses that type of language. No, “we” don’t need to do whatever the proposed solution is going to be because we cannot. We have no power to effect the desired outcome, and sometimes the measures they say “we need to” do won’t even lead to the desired outcome (think Prohibition, War on Drugs, etc.). Somebody needs to do something, yes, and circumstances need to be made seriously threatening to their prospective longevity if not. Who those people are and how their continued survival can be made contingent on doing their duty is the difficult part of the discussion, the part everyone knows is sitting there waiting to be solved but that no one wants to talk about in polite, law-abiding circles.
I agree with you, but I appreciate that there are still smart people trying to figure out how we can “land the plane,” as Raworth puts it. Those who survive should remember that there were ways out of this disaster, even at this late date. It makes it clearer what drove this self-destruction, and can perhaps serve as a warning for humans seeking to cobble together Civilization II.
The op-ed starts off with what I assert is an incorrect assessment:
“We live in an age of manufactured scarcity. In a world richer than ever before, roughly one 10th of the world’s population still lives in extreme destitution.”
The world was FAR richer in, say 1900 when there were untapped oil reserves, richer mineral and metal reserves, less depleted farmland, healthier oceans, healthier forests and climate change effects decades away.
The earth, itself, is apparently also “manufacturing scarcity” via depletion and degredation.
With a smaller population in 1900, the potentially accessible earthly wealth, per capita, was much greater than now.
Maybe the world is much richer than before in asset valuation, but converting those paper asset values into newly created real goods such as copper, oil, steel, fertilizer, farmland, healthier oceans and forests is falsely equating notational asset value with real, less accessible/obtainable materials.
>Trump memecoin investors lost $3.8 billion, analysis finds
Is this a tax on stupidity?
Mumbai received 100cm of rains in just five days. India monsoon still in 20 plus percent deficit. Extreme localised rain events are becoming very frequent. 700mm rain in 24hrs in a place near Mumbai
I guess the Epstein class is upset about the protest against them in Albania. We’ve seen the dance before. Claim terrorist are threatening the country, followed with a NATO invasion to remove the impediments, then princess Trump and her husband will have no more issues with their ‘resort’ going ahead along with a large military base, built right next to Albania’s capital, to keep the peace. TBH, they’re quite predictable after awhile. It saddens me that they can do this with impunity.
Just another reminder that the transnational class has a priority of killing people’s thoughts and ideas about “sovereign states”.
“Morally reprehensible”: Prediction Markets Offer Bets on Wildfires – Mother Jones
Remember, one of the reasons it took so long to put out all the fires in the LA back in Jan 2025 was all the creepy arsonists that kept popping up.
No government that cared about its citizens or even its own natural resources would ever allow such a thing.
I think the guys who fly the planes and the firefighters are government employees. So they’re incentivizing arsonists to kill public servants for profit.
Just when you think it can’t get worse, it does.
Actually, the Junior Senator of Montana, Timmy ‘weasel eyes’ Sheehy started a private contracting aviation fire suppression company, pumped it up, and sold out to buy a sprawling ranch.
The company has had a very shaky and checkered financial history.
He and a few others are re-jiggering fire fighting into the private sector via legislation. Pretty sick politics everywhere, but Montana seems aspirational to take the cake.
There were arrests all over the place. One reason it was in the news – at least locally.
I posted some articles here.
I should have been more definite with that sentence. I was referring to the US government allowing this corrupt Polymarket/Prediction market scam, not the fact that the arsons happened.
A less ambiguous version:
No government that cared about its citizens would allow prediction markets that enable arsonists to profit from their crimes.
No reason to suggest there was nothing done about it or that it was allowed. They arrested people just like they would in Georgia.
“Sorry, Democrats: Your Midterm Hopes Are Probably Overblown”
I’ve thought a lot about how, at least in American retail politics, the mere fact of saying something people have never heard before (or have not heard in a long time) gives the proposition an aura of truth, which is often quite durable. (This applies to DSA types, as well as to Trump.)
It might have something to do with the intuitive perception of a statement against interest as inherently more credible: Everyone knows that candidates who go against the grain usually get crushed, and so why would anyone say they were against war, or the inexorable tide of deindustrialization (or, for that matter, self-identify as a SOCIALIST), if they weren’t sincere?
And it takes a long time for lies to be discredited. To anyone throwing up their hands about how right-wing economic populism was always clearly a fraud, and should now be visible as such to even the most benighted voters: How long did “a rising tide lifts all boats” and the various iterations of “learn to code” last? It was definitely longer than our current decade of winning.
Obviously this dates me, but today’s 5th link above immediately reminded me of the classic deadpan genius of Bob and Ray’s Komodo dragon sketch.
How and why to de-Google your life –
Dump your US android and get a Huawei phone, cancel any and all gmail accounts, stop using a chrome-based browser (maybe Brave is OK) and just for safety sake dump Windows and install Linux.
“get a Huawei phone”
I had a Huawei some years ago. And then suddenly I was unable to access any email accounts.
Belgium beat US 4-1, despite the controversy.
That’s a pretty one-sided score that. I guess Trump’s ham-fisted interference fired up the Belgians.