Yves here. Extra links today due to Trump shooting post-mortems.
A history of contact’: Geneticists are rewriting the narrative of Neanderthals and other ancient humans ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
New Memristor Device Challenges the Von Neumann Bottleneck With Ionic Innovation SciTech Daily (Chuck L)
Startup Makes Butter Using CO2 and Water New Atlas
Belarus Registers World’s First Patented Lung Cancer Vaccine From Cuba Sputnik (Robin K)
Self-Awareness Might Not Have Evolved to Benefit The Self After All ScienceAlert (Chuck L)
#COVID-19
Reminder: If you recently had covid, the recommendation is that you not exercise for at least 6-8 weeks–even if your symptoms were mild–to not put more stress on your body, which could lead to Long COVID. Conserve your energy as much as you can.
— Milan 🍉 (@milanaldebaran) July 17, 2024
Climate/Environment
EXTRAORDINARY HEAT MIDDLE EAST
Records no-stop everywhere since weeks
HOTTEST NIGHT IN HISTORY IN KUWAIT yesterday with a minimum of 38.4C in the Int- APCrazy hot nights in the mountains:
TMIN 32.4 Bisha 1100m asl SAUDI ARABIA,recordmax 44.0 Najran 1100m all time high https://t.co/1OtuA2bt25
— Extreme Temperatures Around The World (@extremetemps) July 14, 2024
【Historic rainstorm】 Today, Sheqi, Nanyang, Henan, experienced the heaviest rainstorm in China this year, with 711.6 mm of rainfall in 24 hours! (The data was interrupted afterwards) This is almost equivalent to the annual rainfall in the area! pic.twitter.com/J2LwyD5UeZ
— Jim (@yangyubin1998) July 16, 2024
We’re returning to temperatures not seen for millions of years.
Within a geological instant.
Most things can’t adapt to such rapid changes.
Many things will brake and we’re here to cause and witness it all. https://t.co/5l06Q3tT1L pic.twitter.com/7CTrtHFTGD
— Leon Simons (@LeonSimons8) July 14, 2024
Thousands in Houston still without power amid brutal heatwave after Beryl Guardian
To Protect Against Wildfires, Insurers Try to Change Construction Standards New York Times (Kevin W)
Puerto Rico Files $1 Billion Suit Against Fossil Fuel Companies The Verge. Complaint here.
Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries TechRadar (Kevin W)
California Grid Breezes Through Heat Wave due to Renewables, Batteries This is Not Cool (Paul R)
Broken Vineyard Wind Turbine Scatters Debris Along Nantucket’s South Shore; Wind Farm Operations Shut Down By Feds Nantucket Current (Kevin W)
China?
China EVs still driving for EU’s protected markets Asia Times
Cutting-Edge Technology Could Massively Reduce the Amount of Energy Used For Air Conditioning Wired
China installing the wind / solar equivalent of 5 nuclear power stations a week ABC.net.au (Paul R)
Cyanide killed 6 foreigners in Bangkok hotel, police say DW
Haiti May End Up Foiling US Plans for Kenya Orinoco Tribune (Robin K)
European Disunion
French president accepts premier’s resignation following snap election results Anadolu Agency
German industry has taken a permanent hit, estimated 7% shortfall is half cyclical and half structural International Affairs (Micael T)
Germany’s democratic center is right-wing extremist and militaristic Nachdenkseiten via machine translation Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
Old Blighty
More money and staff – so why isn’t the NHS more productive? BBC
Gaza
‘Operation al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 283: Israel bombs three Gaza displacement centers, killing hundreds Mondoweiss (guurst)
Shocking.@UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza, turned into a battlefield & now flattened 👇
Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting… pic.twitter.com/XVOm5UjJeM
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 15, 2024
US considers fresh legal bid questioning ICC jurisdiction over Israel Middle East Eye
New Not-So-Cold War
Biden administration deludes itself by thinking new war not to affect US — Lavrov TASS (guurst)
To war with Kaja Kallas – Brussels’ total break with Moscow (Micael T)
Problems Persist in Ukraine’s New Mobilization Drive Kyiv Post
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
What’s worse than thieves hacking into your bank account? When they steal your phone number, too Associated Press (Kevin W). Maybe this sort of thing will roll back one of my pet peeves, using SMS for 2FA?
Cloudflare Reports Almost 7% of Internet Traffic Is Malicious ZDNet. Seems about right, looking at the volume of phishing e-mails I receive.
Rite Aid Says Breach Exposes Sensitive Details of 2.2 Million Customers ars technica. :-(. I was a Rite Aid customer then, but they would not have any gov’t ID from me. Hope no one here exposed.
Imperial Collapse Watch
Intelligence: The god that failed Asia Times (Kevin W)
Space-Based Warfare: America’s Dominance Challenged Brian Berletic, YouTube
Trump
The Surrender Matt Taibbi. Important
He looks almost teary-eyed starting at 3:30. Li thought he looked like a tired old Scot and a bit shaken:
PRESIDENT TRUMP ❤️ pic.twitter.com/0BRzagrUTi
— Team Trump (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@TeamTrump) July 16, 2024
How Trump Boosted His Latino and Black Support—by Ignoring Party Advice Wall Street Journal
* * * The general thrust of this tweet is plausible, even if the writer might at times overegg the pudding. Not hard to think the Biden Administration make sure Trump protection was chronically understaffed and therefore at some point a hostile actor could and therefore would breach a predictable gap. In other words, playing a game of odds rather than taking affirmative steps:
Nobody wants to hear this because of the implications, but oh well: Joe Biden’s security regime deliberately and with malice aforethought created the conditions that led to an assassin shooting Donald Trump in the head. It is by the grace of God that he lived and our nation is…
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 16, 2024
Lambert reported on this in Water Cooler, but to make sure you didn’t miss this fact: Three snipers were stationed inside building used in Trump assassination attempt CBS (Li)
It’s impossible to overstate how much of a miracle we experienced on July 13th.
This is how close we came.
I can’t stop watching. pic.twitter.com/9jM0gtEgmH
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 16, 2024
Jesse Watters: Don’t buy this excuse from the Secret Service Fox (Li)
JUST IN: CNN host loses it after former US Army sn*per Cory Mills suggests the July 13 assas*ination attempt on Trump *could have been* a setup.
Holy sh*t.
Mills explained how everything about the incident made no sense.
CNN anchor Kate Bolduan was visibly stunned and… pic.twitter.com/ss6G0opgKx
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 16, 2024
The question isn’t just how in the hell that roof 150 yards away from Trump was unguarded
The question is also how this gunman knew that it was unguarded
— Darren J. Beattie 🌐 (@DarrenJBeattie) July 15, 2024
Col. Larry Wilkerson: Assassination of Donald Trump -Ukraine Collapsing – Israel Has Lost Hands Down Dialogue Works. Interesting on multiple fronts, but here because opening section is about Secret Service, and Wilkerson has two daughters and friends who worked there, and so has comments from them. Also major antipathy re Vance. Sees him as a Cassius and “energetic to a fault”.
Plastic surgeon reveals $10,000 surgery Donald Trump would have to undergo to fix his bullet-damaged ear Daily Mail (Li)
* * * Trump echoes Kennedy’s vaccine conspiracies in leaked phone call Axios (furzy). Lambert had a story on this call but the headline was about RFK, Jr, and not the Trump vax patter (which Lambert did excerpt but the MSM focus had not yet started)
Vance
Europe fears weakened security ties with US as Donald Trump picks JD Vance Financial Times (Kevin W)
Vance Isn’t Hiding His Hawkishness on Iran Daniel Larison
Trump’s VP Pick Vance Says Iran Needs To Be ‘Punched Hard’ Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Biden
Believe Your Own Eyes Atlantic (furzy)
Biden Claims He’s Done More for the ‘Palestinian Community’ Than Anyone Else Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Democrats en déshabillé
Sen. Bob Menendez guilty of taking bribes in cash and gold and acting as Egypt’s foreign agent Associated Press (Kevin W)
Supremes
Biden set to announce support for major Supreme Court reforms Washington Post (furzy)
Our No Longer Free Press
Google Now Defaults To Not Indexing Your Content Vincent Schmalbach . Important. Not being indexed = not existing on the Internet. This is a way that Google can censor all sorts of things while professing innocence.
Interior Ministry bans “Compact” magazine – raids in four federal states Focus. Micael T:
They do not mention that the Compact magazine was banned after thay had shown this interview with Maria Zakharova https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0DAeXDU6Ek8
The German political misleadership is really insane.Antitrust
Inside the Mafia of Pharma Pricing Matt Stoller (Dr. Kevin)
Class Warfare
Amazon Enforces New Office Hours Rule Business Insider
Mexican steel workers continue strike in defiance of courts and union WSWS
Antidote du jour. Bob H: “Look what I saw on my way to the 4th – in the big unmowed field on the west side of the North Haven Rd !!”
And a bonus (Chuck L):
An owl gliding through a cloud of helium-filled soap bubbles reveals wingtip and tail vortices.
📽: Usherwood et al. pic.twitter.com/nS3fA9F9py
— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) July 14, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
