Animals react to secret sounds from plants, say scientists BBC
2.35-billion-year-old Moon rock found in Africa rewrites lunar history ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
Lecture 19 – Weber on Charismatic Authority Open Yale Courses (resilc)
How GLP-1s Are Breaking Life Insurance Ashwin Sharma, MD (Paul R)
The fascinating science of pain – and why everyone feels it differently Guardian (Kevin W)
The Death of Partying in the U.S.A.—and Why It Matters Derek Thompson (resilc). Important.
#COVID-19/Pandemics
From Barry Ritholtz (resilc):
Running this for an informed reader sanity check. I can’t believe Remdesivir was this dangerous since so many top pols like Kamala took it. Was the dosing higher in the Ebola trials? “The dose makes the poison….”
Remdesivir Was Declared Too Deadly & Too Unethical To Use In African Ebola Trials Because It Had A 53% Kill Rate.
Yet, It Was The Only Drug Fauci Allowed To Be Used On COVID Patients In Hospitals.
Remdesivir Is Still Used Today & It Is Now Being Used On Infants & Children…… pic.twitter.com/UfdTqHAl8X
— Valerie Anne Smith (@ValerieAnne1970) July 14, 2025
Climate/Environment
Living Earth Multipolar (Micael T). On promoting health soil.
East Asian aerosol cleanup has likely contributed to the recent acceleration in global warming Nature (Paul R)
Global warming may create a “permanent El Nino”, changing the world’s weather patterns BNE
Even as oceans take up 90% of the heat from global warming, air temperatures over land increase faster than over oceans.
The land only trendline has already reached +2°C!
This is based on observations: https://t.co/elUxvQWCtG pic.twitter.com/9gjisVczKT
— Leon Simons (looking up) (@LeonSimons8) July 11, 2025
Tibetan glacial lake drainage triggered deadly flood in Nepal, climate body says Reuters
‘It can’t withstand the heat’: fears ‘stable’ Patagonia glacier in irreversible decline Guardian
Lithuania to save Baltic seals as ice sheets recede due to climate change Aljazeera
Climate change poses growing threat to UK economy, says BoE official Financial Times
“THE RIVER HOUSE BROKE. WE RUSHED IN THE RIVER.” Texas Monthly (Anthony L).
China?
America asks its allies the tough questions Asia Times (Kevin W)
* * * The Power Gap – How China Outpowered the U.S. Doug Casey (Micael T)
🇨🇳🇺🇸China’s Hypersonic Jumbo Aircraft Hits Mach 6 In Test Flight; Can Travel From Beijing To New York In 2 Hours. pic.twitter.com/lD5XNDPD47
— Defense Intelligence (@DI313_) July 13, 2025
China launches world’s first adjustable sails oil tanker
‘Cut emissions by 5,000 tons/year’ pic.twitter.com/YGRtCOAqN0
— RT (@RT_com) July 13, 2025
Zombie fabs plague China’s chipmaking ambitions, failures burning tens of billions of dollars Tom’s Hardware (Paul R)
A Chinese startup just did what decades of U.S. labs couldn’t. Fusion power is no longer America’s game. Here’s what happened.
China Makes Historic Leap in Energy with the World’s First High-Temperature Superconductor Tokamak – Paris 2018 News https://t.co/stJ3JxqeMz
— William Huo (@wmhuo168) July 13, 2025
European Disusion
Europe’s quiet power blocs: The new relevance of Visegrád and the Baltic Triangle Euractiv. “Baltic triangle” sounds an awful lot like “Bermuda triangle”. Do arms go there and disappear?
Sweden eyes extending military officers’ conscription age to 70 Reuters (resilc)
The Netherlands explores turning rail wagons into hospitals for wounded soldiers Politico
Old Blighty
Selling England by the pound Richard Murphy (Colonel Smithers)
Rachel Reeves has nowhere to go Unherd (Colonel Smithers)
Israel v. The Resistance
In Act of ‘Brutal Sadism,’ Israel Bans Gazans From Entering Sea Under Pain of Death CommonDreams (Kevin W)
Be sure to click through to read the entire tweet. When you think Zionists can’t get any more vile, there always seems to be counter-evidence.
Modern Hebrew or Israeli Hebrew has only been around for around 150 years https://t.co/L1BXMrNN1y pic.twitter.com/nh21Ctwy9Z
— Maria (@real1maria) July 10, 2025
Jerusalem Water Authority:
Last night, a group of Israeli settlers stormed the Ein Samia wells, causing widespread destruction and rendering the entire site inoperable. All systems have gone offline, resulting in a total loss of communication and control.
The Ein Samia wells…
— Mosab Abu Toha (@MosabAbuToha) July 14, 2025
Hamas Says It Won’t Sign a “Surrender” Agreement, As War of Attrition Intensifies Jeremy Scahill
Iran seeks at least three cloud providers to power its government The Register (Chuck L)
New Not-So-Cold War
Trump’s Weapons Magic Show is Smoke & Mirrors Masterclass Simplicius
The MSM version: Trump does deal with Nato allies to arm Ukraine and warns Russia of severe sanctions Guardian (Kevin W)
I’m ‘disappointed but not done’ with Putin, Trump tells BBC. So Putin is supposed to care about Trump’s feelers?
* * *,/center> 🇺🇸🇺🇦🇷🇺Biden-era Options Trump Will Likely Exercise vs. Russia in Ukraine
▪️Biden admin was considering arming Ukraine with a number of JASSM air-launched cruise missiles using F-16s already deployed to Ukraine;
▪️Baseline JASSMs would fall just short of reaching Moscow, while… pic.twitter.com/q7kNGwyjYU
— Brian Berletic (@BrianJBerletic) July 14, 2025
Russia rejects France’s call for western ‘peacekeepers’ in Ukraine The Cradle (Kevin W)
Putin: The West’s Conflict With Russia Is Not About Ideology Moon of Alabama
Russian stock market accelerates growth after Trump’s statements Vzglyad via machine translation (Micael T)
US offers to lease Zangezur Corridor for 100 years to ‘resolve’ Armenian–Azeri tensions The Cradle (Kevin W)
Lasha Kasradze: Azerbaijan as the Next Frontline Against Russia & Iran? Glenn Diesen
Imperial Collapse Watch
Is America Breaking the Global Economy? Foreign Affairs
The Problem of the Strategic Defender Policy Tensor (Chuck L). Important even if it does go off the rails at the end about China.
Colby’s Misguided Pressure on U.S. Allies Daniel Larison
South Korea not in talks with US on downsizing American forces in country: Foreign minister nominee Anadolu Agency
Collective Defense? Mark Wauck
Though this be Madness Julian Macfarlane
L’affaire Epstein
Trump goes into meltdown because the Epstein files could bring the US government down Council Estate (resilc). Too hopeful but the repeated Trump meltdowns on this topic encourage this line of thinking.
Trump presidency at risk of unraveling w/ Robert Barnes The Duran. Barnes often needs to be taken with some salt, but his detail early in the talk about Epstein is very good.
Trump’s effort to quell MAGA revolt over Epstein files seems to add fuel to the fire ABC (Kevin W)
Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell is ready to reveal ‘truth’ of the pedophile client list, say insiders. So, why are Republicans blocking her? Daily Mail (resilc)
Our No Longer Free Press
On Tucker v. the IDF:
What happened this past weekend with turning point USA was HUGE.
It may not seem like it but the event marks an actual turning point in history.
If you were paying attention, it should be abundantly clear that Charlie Kirk and turning cannot contain the moods and opinions of…
— Propaganda & co (@propandco) July 14, 2025
Case closed after ‘Russian disinfo’ claims led to persecution of NZ journalist GrayZone (Kevin W)
New York’s Stale Speech Suppression Playbook American Conservative (Li)
Police State Watch
I Triggered Another Federal Investigation Ken Klippenstein (Chuck L)
US manufacturers are stuck in a rut despite subsidies from Biden and protection from Trump Associated Press (Kevin W). Quelle surprise!
AI
Restaurant Uses AI for Menu, Accidentally Describes Appetizer in Way So Disgusting That We May Never Recover Futurism. Paul R: “No wait, it’s worse. It was a Doordash-like service that used the AI….”
How o3 and Grok 4 Accidentally Vindicated Neurosymbolic AI Gary Marcus
Defense Department to begin using Grok, Musk’s controversial AI model Washington Post (Kevin W). So we’ll lose wars faster.
How Google Killed OpenAI’s $3 Billion Deal Without an Acquisition Gizmodo (Kevin W)
The Bezzle
Elon Musk looms over jury selection in Tesla Autopilot fatality trial CNBC (Kevin W)
‘Come meet us in Dubai’: the new offshoring of grand corruption The Conversation (Kevin W)
Class Warfare
Musk’s Perfect World: How would it work? Steve Keen (Chuck L). Today’s must read.
Five Companies Now Control Over 90% of the Global Food Delivery Market Ramnz (Paul R). Where is the world’s smallest violin? Food delivery is a luxury. The people for whom you should feel sorry are the deliveristas. And why do restaurants play ball when they get exploited?
Retirement Then, Now, and Next The New School
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
This only happens to you once. pic.twitter.com/0BoBFGJLCM
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) July 12, 2025
A second bonus:
Is this what they call cat reflexes? pic.twitter.com/UJKJx7bqQU
— cats with threatening auras (@catshealdeprsn) July 13, 2025
And a different sort of bonus (hat tip Li):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
