Engelhardt, Personal TomDispatch (sort of) Goodbye TomDispatch. All good things must come to an end, and that sadly includes TomDispatch (although, as you can see, many of its creators will continue their efforts at The Intercept)
Octopuses use mirrors to find invisible food Science Daily (Kevin W)
Will we bring back ostracism? Classical Wisdom (Michael T)
Popular Literary Reviews (Anthony L)
How to lie undiplomatically with charts and graphs (Michael T)
About excessive socialization Idol Rambler (Michael T)
Why are men bad at making and keeping friends? Derek Thompson (Michael T.)
#New Coronavirus Infection/Pandemic
One of my family members is a doctor. It’s so common that there’s a term “COVID-19 to hospice truck.” This is about 6 months worth of slides.
— MistSandGrass🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Mistsandgrass) June 4, 2026
Climate/Environment
The looming El Niño may be bad – but something even worse is coming, new scientist says.
Gray whales struggle for nutrition in the warming Arctic Alaska Beacon
Earth may be too hot to grow rice in many regions where it currently exists Live Science
President Trump uses wartime powers to donate $700 million to ‘clean, beautiful’ coal guardians
Water wars wash away South Asia’s fragile peace Asia Times (Kevin W)
China?
China’s real estate funk drags on another sector: real estate service provider Reuters
The story of Neexperia continues
China’s Dongguan Municipal Intermediate People’s Court accepted Wingtech’s lawsuit against Nexperia and its Dutch subsidiary under China’s Foreign Sanctions Law (AFSL).
Wingtech (Chinese owner) is asking for full control restoration and approximately $1.1… https://t.co/a9vG1QGhhw pic.twitter.com/gR3ZHzf3EM
— David Le (@DavidLe76335983) June 5, 2026
Harvest rain in China could affect wheat quality, spurring imports Reuters
Blood cancers that are now solvable are on the rise. Michael T:
Regulations regarding clinical trials exist to protect people from big pharmaceutical companies who care about nothing but profit. I don’t know if it’s the right path for China to play fast and lose in the trial. Vague incentives to get people to participate in experiments.
Africa
From the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, instability appears to be perpetuating Meta Defense
Firefight between Somali army and rebel militia in Mogadishu leaves civilians evacuated The Guardian
At least 350 killed in Sudan’s tribal clashes in 5 days EFE
The longest betrayal in world geopolitics. About the recolonization of Zimbabwe
south of the border
‘Blood gold’: How gangs took control of Venezuela’s mines Japan Times
US imposes new sanctions on Cuban president and Castro family Guardian
Bolivia’s blockade crisis risks escalating into civilian conflict, analysts warn Melcopress
The invention of “machismo” in the United States JSTOR (Micael T)
discord in europe
EU gives respite to countries suffering from energy shortages Bloomberg
Putin and AfD plan to restart Nord Stream pipeline to Europe Telegraph
Repair backlog clearly jeopardizes Targetschau’s ability to operate with machine translation (guurst)
old blighty
Rural Britain would be ‘particularly at risk’ of diesel shortages if Iran war continues – Guardian
israel vs resistance
Iran says it fired warning missiles and drones at US warships in the Gulf of Oman Jerusalem Post (Anne)
President Trump said after the US attack on Anadolu Agency that Iran only has 21-22% of its missile stockpile. The worst part is that President Trump likely believes that.
Iranian general rejects Trump’s request to meet supreme leader, warns of retaliation Janta Ka reporter, YouTube. In the notes section starting at 3:40, a senior Iranian official reaffirms the need for the US to return $24 billion in frozen assets as part of the MOU’s closing price. We’ll also talk about Ivanka and the Albanian scam later. Vikas Santi: “The thing about this Albanian island is extreme greed.”
Anbu. Chas Freeman: Israel’s All Fronts Free Fall Dialogue Works, YouTube. It was a particularly good talk, with a number of important sub-points, including Freeman’s view of recent US actions towards Oman as greatly increasing the likelihood of Omani cooperation in running the Persian Gulf Authority.
Will Iran respond to the Zionist ethnic cleansing campaign in Lebanon? Vanessa Beeley. Oh, oh:
And let’s talk about Lebanon first of all. Because today Prime Minister Netanyahu and Prime Minister Katz issued a statement basically saying that Washington has given the green light for expansion. their atrocities and the bombing of Beirut. Now, perhaps initially, we saw Ben Gabil also making a statement that Dahieh should be flattened.
Alastair Crook: Iran Trigger Warning: “Withdraw from Lebanon…Strike on Violation” Dialogue Works, YouTube
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces plummeting approval ratings in northern Israel as voters seek tough stance on Lebanon Reuters
Israel’s Smotrich announces plans to build 2,162 homes in occupied West Bank Al Jazeera
Israel recruiting ultra-nationalists for Al-Aqsa Mosque police force Middle East Online (Kevin W)
Israel sent elite troops to Azerbaijan and operated Somaliland base during Iran war, reported Times of Israel (Kevin W)
President Trump asks Palestinians to pay for US occupation of Gaza Mondweis (Kevin W)
A new war that’s not so cold war
House passes bill providing billions of dollars in additional military aid to Ukraine as war escalates Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Ukraine’s SPIEF attack aims at maximum provocation, drones seen flying from Simplicius from Baltic Sea direction (Kevin W) By the way, there are some bad reports from Simplicius. SPIEF’s base is located very far from its St. Petersburg headquarters. Alexander Merkur, a regular visitor to St. Petersburg and on at least one very long stay, said that although he could not even see smoke from the fire from the venue, many of the guests were clearly happy to see the fire surrounding the hotel.
“Europe is a mad dog today”: Scott Ritter unleashes a stunning attack on Europe on SPIEF APT, YouTube. Hey, kid.
President Putin’s message to Ukraine: “Keep working, brothers” Larry Johnson
Open Letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz Jeffrey Sachs (Michael T.)
Ukrainian drone explodes at Romanian port RT (Kevin W)
Euroclear called on the central bank to preserve the 200 billion euro recovery. Machine Translated by Vzglayd (Micael T) Hmm, I was wondering if Euroclear is taking the position that the Moscow Arbitration Court has no jurisdiction. Filing as usual except on very narrow issues = acceptance of jurisdiction. Therefore, one cannot help but think that the Moscow Arbitration Court may enforce its judgment on at least part of the $200 billion seized from the Russian Central Bank and others.
big brother is watching over you
Palantir. It’s Worse Than You Think Double Down News
imperial collapse watch
You can’t trust America, Daniel Rolison. important.
Main message of President Putin’s SPIEF speech: Seismic shifts in global economic power are irreversible Sputnik
Three Dualities of the American Political Spirit Finn Andrin (Michael T.)
🚨🇺🇸BREAKING NEWS: A CIA officer arrested with $40 million in gold bullion allegedly concocted a fake top-secret spy program to steal the money.
As if this story couldn’t get any wilder:
-David Rush allegedly built America’s blackest box, a fake “Special Access Program”… pic.twitter.com/uwbkQQ0xlE
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 6, 2026
FDD to map Qatar’s $400 billion footprint in the US (resilc)
Trump 2.0
Please click:
𝗣𝗮𝘆-𝘁𝗼-𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆. 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀-𝗴𝗼-𝗮𝘄𝗮𝘆. 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗱. 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽’𝘀𝗳𝗮𝗺𝗶𝗹𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗱.
Over the past few weeks, I have followed a series of deals, from the introduction of yachts in 2021 in the Adriatic Sea, to the signed removal of US sanctions. pic.twitter.com/YQELt3UQ0d
— AJ Jaff (@aj_geo_analysis) June 5, 2026
Mikey Weinstein talks on YouTube about Hegseth cutting out 180 faiths from the Pentagon-recognized religion (Chuck L)
Judge blocks Trump policy to halt immigration proceedings The Hill
MAGA voters lose airline tickets, jobs, money as Spirit Airlines goes bankrupt Egbert
Video: Police battle diabetes experts at today’s ADA conference MedPage (Dr. Kevin). Wowsers.
US to scrap Atlantic current tracking system at risk of collapse Ale360
5 reasons why Ken Paxton is the epitome of MAGA crook Mehdi Hassan. Please tell me how you really feel 🙂
immigration
Republicans push $70 billion for immigration enforcement through Senate, no limit on ICE Kansas Reflector (Robin K)
customs duty
China, EU condemn US tariff proposals, deny forced labor allegations South China Morning Post
President Trump’s tariffs are back – the timing couldn’t be worse for Asia Asia Times (Kevin W)
economy
OECD warns Financial Times of “dark scenario” if Gulf energy crisis drags on. Hey, do you think so?
Iran war: peace deal won’t solve energy shortage DW
Mercuria’s shipping chief says fuel shortages could put 10% of global fleet out of commission S&P Global
Global LNG squeeze could cause unprecedented demand destruction Upstream Online
Two countries accounted for 84% of the decline in global onshore crude oil inventories over the past two months. The United States and Japan have conducted the largest SPR releases. In other places (👀 China) it doesn’t move or shake much. pic.twitter.com/GwbuDWCZ3i
— Matt Smith (@mattvsmith01) June 5, 2026
* * *
Battle for biofuels due to rising oil prices ‘could bring the world closer to a food crisis’ The Guardian
The clock is ticking: Fertilizers, food, and the vulnerability of global agriculture Council on Foreign Relations
A.I.
Energy failure is doomed to doom Wall Street’s AI euphoria, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, Telegraph. important. Although we have said this from time to time, it is important to fully substantiate the argument.
Donald Trump says the US may acquire stakes in AI companies Financial Times
Like fat tail, LLM is a frequency machine that cannot be extrapolated outside of the sample set. What they know is what they see.
Almost as bad as economists, but almost worse than psychologists. https://t.co/NopxFTpQKH
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) June 4, 2026
It turns out that AI models can’t do math, even elementary school arithmetic. Something a 10 year old could solve.
Apple has released a devastating study that exposes a huge illusion at the core of artificial intelligence.
They adopted the standard math benchmark (GSM8K) used by all AI companies. pic.twitter.com/1PuseqIwYz
— How To AI (@HowToAI_) June 4, 2026
Spotify’s 2026 Master Plan | Investor Day That Wasn’t About Music 🎶📊 Vinyl Culture (Micael T)
China stokes resistance to US data centers, AI group claims Axios (fk)
How anti-humanism turned against the authors: Has AI made criticism unnecessary? Hedgehog review (Anthony L)
basil
Musk’s SpaceX empire may be overvalued by $1 trillion Yahoo
guillotine watch
Now you know why Peter Thiel packed his bags for Argentina.
Millais has just submitted a legislative framework for AI to Congress, where he proposes:
– Zero regulations on AI development,
– A completely new “non-human corporation” category for AI/robot-operated corporations with limited liability… pic.twitter.com/JF1rUxWzlJ
— Michał Podolewski (@trajektoriePL) June 4, 2026
A billionaire explains why American business feels like the mafia right now Matt Stoller
class war
Butler’s Crusade Begins Charles McBride (Michael T.). Today’s must-read.
The myth of assimilation aporia (Michael T.)
Why is “catastrophic spending” increasing? guardian
Gen Z faces ‘Great Recession’ due to dating costs and emotional risks Fox Business
Antidote (via):
And bonus:
This is Henry, the world’s oldest known Nile crocodile. It is believed that he was born around 1900. pic.twitter.com/EvvjdMzMMB
— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) June 3, 2026
Second bonus:
An orphaned goat whose mother was killed by wolves and removed from his herd, he now sneaks in every night to sleep safely surrounded by sheepdogs. ❤️❤️ pic.twitter.com/fKMxoTel9y
— TheFigen (@TheFigen_) June 4, 2026
Third:
This compilation brings together the courtship behavior of male peacock spiders photographed over many years.
📹: Michael Lunn pic.twitter.com/EMlVmXUigb
— Nature Unedited (@NatureUnedited) June 4, 2026
Henry isn’t for everyone, so one more thing:
Meanwhile, in Japan. pic.twitter.com/HB5TtxOLLe
— S Printer (@SprinterPress) June 5, 2026
Click here for yesterday’s link and Antidote du Jour.
