Jellyfish force French reactor shutdowns, strain grid Euractiv
So bad they’re good – why do we love terrible films? BBC (Robin K)
Learning Greek – A Practical Guide Spengler (Micael T)
#COVID-19/Pandemics
Measles Cases by State in 2025 Visual Capitalist
The United States helped beat back malaria in Guinea. Now, the disease is set to soar. #LongReads @pulitzercenter https://t.co/jEFBg7jjMB
— News from Science (@NewsfromScience) August 12, 2025
Climate/Environment
Western Europe & North Africa also breaks records,apart of the 80 records in France, we have
MOROCCO Brutal record heat on the Atlantic coast
47.9 Essaouira AP
46.5 Safi
SPAIN Record hot nights in the Highlands
min 26.2 Segovia,21.9 Leon
ITALY
38.5 Genova AP tie
38.3 Sarzana AP https://t.co/j8YVQHQWPG— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) August 11, 2025
No hope for Pyrenean glaciers Annals of Glaciology (guurst)
Satellites watch France’s largest wildfire in 75 years burn an area larger than Paris Space
Cyprus on the brink as government to pay for water tankers in race for drinking water In-Cyprus
Iraq Grapples with Severe Drought, Urges Turkey to Restore Water Share Kurdistan24
Iran Battles Wave of Forest and Grassland Fires Across 11 Provinces Amid Heatwave and Drought Iran News Update
Japan’s Rice Crop at Risk as Farms Face Record-Breaking Heat Bloomberg
Biochar From Human Waste Could Solve Global Fertilizer Shortages, Study Finds Guardian
Seeing the Forest for the Trees James Hansen:
Climate sensitivity is substantially higher than IPCC’s best estimate (3°C for doubled CO2), a conclusion we reach with greater than 99 percent confidence.
Capitalocene and biotariate: new eco-social class struggle vientoSur via machine translation (Micael T)
China?
U.S. Government to Take Cut of Nvidia and AMD A.I. Chip Sales to China New York Times (resilc). Conor had a preliminary report from Reuters yesterday.
Trump Extorts Companies To Pay Taxes On Exports Moon of Alabama
China urges local firms not to use Nvidia’s H20 chips, Bloomberg News reports Reuters. BWAHAHA
China’s push to promote its currency accelerates with landmark Fortescue loan South China Morning Post
China’s unemployed young adults who are pretending to have jobs BBC
India
Modi’s American embrace backfires badly on India Asia Times (Kevin W). Very good on the military/arms part but gets the tariffs wrong. Nearly all of India’s exports were exempted from the surcharge ex diamonds and other gemstones.
Africa
Rwanda-backed rebels have killed at least 80 civilians in recent weeks, Congolese authorities say Associated Press
South of the Border
The unprecedented feud between the US and Brazil Financial Times
Mexico’s $4 billion gamble: The Interoceanic Corridor reshaping global trade Interesting Engineering (Robin K)
Blackwater founder Erik Prince pitches deployment of US mercenaries to South America WSWS (Micael T)
European Disunion
Europe builds for war as arms factories expand at triple speed Financial Times. Lead story.
EU staff revolt over Gaza stance Politico
Old Blighty
Is the Royal Navy at breaking point or a turning point? Navy Lookout (Colonel Smithers)
Jeremy Clarkson warns of ‘catastrophic’ UK harvest as farmers battle extreme weather and rising costs Business Matters
Israel v. the Resistance
Israel Announces “Final Plan” to Occupy Gaza Simplicius. Also mentions Lebanese government plan to disarm Hezbolllah. Alastair Crooke says that will produce civil war, an outcome Israel would likely see as an acceptable fallback.
Palestinian factions and groups condemned the strike on the Al-Jazeera journalist tent today at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, which resulted in the martyrdom of 7, including 5 journalists, among them Anas Al-Sharif and Mohammed Quraiqe and several photographers and cameramen.…
— Thomas Keith (@iwasnevrhere_) August 11, 2025
Israel killing all the journalists is just like the mafia killing all the eye witnesses Council Estate (resilc)
Gaza: 49% of Palestinians would leave the Strip to return to live il Fatto Quotidiano via machine translation. DLG:
Aya Ashour is a young woman from the north of Gaza who has written for Fatto Quotidiano since the start of the Israeli invasion and genocide in October 2023. Her large family has been displaced several times and is now in the south. The editors at Fatto Quotidiano, and particularly the essayist / journalist Tommaso Montanari, who is the rector of the University for Foreigners at Perugia, extracted her from Gaza about four months ago. She is now a visiting researcher there.
Aya Ashour has been very effective in getting information out about life on the ground in Gaza.
Britain moves to hide its Gaza spy flights Asa Winstanley
“You need to take your things and leave. There are no longer residents here”
🚨Israeli army expels a Bedouin community in the West Bank
Ein Ayoub, near Deir Ammar, West Bank: After the residents had already accepted their fate of displacement by terrorist settlers and were… https://t.co/ThurHLfc9h pic.twitter.com/gVfVRGRU4f
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) August 11, 2025
The Brainrot of a Nazified Society BettBeat
Anthony Albanese said Netanyahu was ‘in denial’ about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, a day after announcing Australia would recognize a Palestinian state for the first time https://t.co/dksb4SKKJZ pic.twitter.com/59zKA7UjFW
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 12, 2025
Only 13 members of Congress have had the courage to say Israel is committing genocide: pic.twitter.com/ZxIUYkbWA9
— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) August 11, 2025
Israel Is Not an Ally—It’s a Liability American Conservative (resilc)
Caucasus
Zangezur or bust: A US corridor scheme meets an Iranian red line The Cradle
New Not-So-Cold War
Europe and Ukraine leaders seek talks with Trump to defend their interests ahead of US-Russia summit Associated Press (Kevin W)
I Guess They Get The Message … Andrei Martyanov. On another summit fantasy, of a big Arctic energy deal. That does not mean that Russia might not throw a bone to the US so as to give Trump something to spin.
Expectations Soaring for Friday’s Putin / Trump Summit Larry Johnson
Lt Col Daniel Davis: Putin in ‘NO LOSE’ and Trump in ‘NO WIN’ Situation Ahead of Alaska Summit Rachel Blevins, YouTube
Half-baked Alaska Julian Macfarlane
The upcoming negotiations in Alaska between Trump and Putin tells you all you ought to know about the nature of the Ukraine war, and Europe’s current geopolitical status.
I did the research: there are very few examples – if any – in Europe’s millennia-old history of a military… pic.twitter.com/J5g2Zy2QCJ
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) August 10, 2025
The Yermak enigma I Events in Ukraine
Imperial Collapse Watch
The New Global Trade Disorder The Economist Gadfly via machine translation (Micael T)
Do The Same Sorts Of People Lead All Societies? Ian Welsh (Micael T)
Trump 2.0
Trump Rages at Nobel-Winning ‘Deranged Bum’ in Late-Night Meltdown Daily Beast. Trump really is losing his mind. Punching down is both a bad look and an admission of weakness. First Medvedev, now Krugman.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth promotes repealing women’s right to vote Popular Information (Dr. Kevin)
Trump to seize control of DC police department, activate National Guard The Hill
Trump Sends National Guard to D.C., Threatens Chicago With the Same Michael Shedlock. Why aren’t more libertarians outraged?
Leaked DC Troop Deployment Order Ken Klippenstein
“Federalizing” D.C. Steve Vladek
EJ Antoni has never worked in statistics collection. He is 5 years out of his PhD. He’s only ever written one economics paper. His explicit, only qualifications are that he works in ultra-conservative think tanks & believes Trump’s conspiracies about the BLS. Grim stuff. https://t.co/wxLXL5dEyH
— Joey Politano 🏳️🌈 (@JosephPolitano) August 11, 2025
Tariffs
Trump announces another 90-day pause on China tariffs Guardian (Kevin W)
Trump Says Gold Imports Won’t Be Tariffed in Reprieve for Market Bloomberg. I suspect that someone on Team Trump pushed the tariffs on the gold bars to help Comex, as some experts argued, but when the noise from goldbugs started, Trump TACOed again.
High costs after tariffs pose threat to Trump and GOP The Hill. Gee, ya think?
Democrat Death Wish
When Did Republican Women Get to Be So Vile as These Four? New Republic. Misogyny is never a good look for soi-disant liberals. resilc: “I could name several DNCerzzzzzzz starting with her majesty Hilliary. Moi: Add Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Neera Tanden.
Newsom leans into AI as ‘the future’ in new policy announcement SFGate (Paul R)
Economy
How AI, Healthcare, and Labubu Became the American Economy Kyla Scanlon (resilc). Important.
Restaurants are under threat as costs skyrocket and consumers cut back CNN (resilc)
Las Vegas servers see their tips drop 50% amid high prices and tourism decline Fox News. resilc: “But now tax free. No tax on nothing = nothing.”
Mr. Market Is Moody
Why world must heed boy crying wolf over risk of financial crisis South China Morning Post
TIPS investors face a ‘sky is falling’ moment TIPS Watch (resilc)
AI
LLMs’ ‘Simulated Reasoning’ Abilities Are a ‘Brittle Mirage,’ Researchers Find ars technica. Underlying paper here
AI Is A Money Trap Ed Zitron (Bugs). From last week, still germane.
The dead need right to delete their data so they can’t be AI-ified, lawyer says The Register
The Bezzle
These Cars Will BANKRUPT You — Consumer Reports Reveals the WORST Vehicles of 2025! YouTube (resilc). Important as an indicator of auto industry predation.
How big trucks and SUVs gobbled up the entire auto industry The Verge (Micael T)
Out of nowhere, Teslas are suddenly clogging a Calif. neighborhood, locals say SFGate. Paul R:
This is in LA. Dozens (at least) of Teslas with temporary license plates have shown up in neighborhood parking spaces, being moved around every few days to avoid being ticketed. The implication is that these are unsold inventory from Tesla or a big local dealer, but the reporter was unable to confirm this so she doesn’t come out and say so directly. Another Elon shell game I guess.
The Air Force is buying Cybertrucks — to blow them up Boing Boing (resilc)
GM Plans Renewed Push On Driverless Cars After Cruise Debacle Seeking Alpha
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman says in 10 years’ time college graduates will be working ‘some completely new, exciting, super well-paid’ job in space Fortune (Kevin W). Even if this were to work (not), it’s another “die faster”. Being in space for meaningful amounts of time exacts a huge health cost, such as loss of bone density and muscle mass and exposure to radiation.
Guillotine Watch
A foreign investor has quietly spent $65M for Malibu real estate charred by January’s wildfires https://t.co/JaOiJgyVPP pic.twitter.com/17sgQzDOMH
— New York Post (@nypost) August 8, 2025
San Francisco estate auction offers peek into Dianne Feinstein’s private world SFGate (Paul R)
Class Warfare
The return of the American Left Unherd
Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle. New York Times.
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
The birds don’t take him seriously yet 😢 pic.twitter.com/iJUj8YOdGr
— Why you should have a cat (@ShouldHaveCat) August 10, 2025
A second bonus:
Happy with his new neighbor. pic.twitter.com/UKFIqiAzwR
— The Figen (@TheFigen_) August 10, 2025
And a third:
Protecting the babies pic.twitter.com/yfjWe6h0p7
— Beauty Of Nature 🌳 (@ShouldHaveAnima) August 12, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
