Last week’s posts on Moon of Alabama:
- Jun 1 – War On Iran: After Israel Threatened Beirut Iran Announced To Further Reduce Global Oil Supplies
- Jun 2 – War On Iran: Economic Reality Will Force Trump To Defy The Lobby’s Pressure
- Jun 5 – War On Iran: – Iran Needs Escalation To Avoid The Ceasefire Trap
Related:
– Oil industry warns Trump administration of price spikes within weeks – Politico
– Trump Dreads an Iran Deal Worse than Obama’s (archived – Atlantic
Talks have stalled in part because the president keeps aiming for a grand finale.
– Iran Severely Damaged US Air Ops Center in Qatar Soon After War Began – Air and Space Forces
– Exclusive: Israel sent troops to Azerbaijan during Iran war as part of secret network across region, sources say – CNN
– A new defence champion is rising from the Gulf (archived) (UAE) – Economist
- Jun 4 – Can Russia Refrain From Hitting Back? – by English Outsider
Related:
– The attritional war in Ukraine: a brief update – Warwick Powell
– Is Ukraine-Russia War Entering the End Game? – A Model of Attritional Warfare Suggests Yes – Peter Turchin
– Ukraine’s plot to force Putin to sue for peace – Telegraph
– AI drones – Ukrainian mid-range drone war: effects, statistics, Russian counter-measures. – Events in Ukraine
- Jun 6 – Israel Asks For A Guaranteed Share Of U.S. Weapon Purchases
Related:
– Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat From Israel (archived) – NY Times
– How to Understand the Israeli Bid to Forego US Military Aid (“its a shell game”) – Jewish Current
– Revealed: Israel’s curriculum for ‘influencing public consciousness’ – 972mag
—
Other issues:
AI Dysfunction:
- How much value is AI really creating? (archived) – FT
Eye-opening changes to the speed and volume of work are not always translating into genuine productivity - Bonanza or Bubble? Where AI Goes From Here (archived) – Bloomberg
- We should be getting better at AI by now (archived) – FT
From cancelled novels to legal fines, the scale of blunders only halfway through the year suggests the opposite - Police in England and Wales told to halt AI use in court statements (archived) – FT
- America’s Data Center Build-Out Is Falling Way Behind Schedule (archived) – WSJ
- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard – Energy failures are destined to doom Wall Street’s AI euphoria – Telegraph
- Exclusive / Anthropic resists sharing financial info with lenders, sources say – Semafor
- US National Security Agency using Anthropic’s Mythos for cyber attacks (archived) – FT
Arrangement comes as AI lab is locked in legal battle with Pentagon over Claude model
AI Bailout:
- Trump says he’s considering government stake in top AI companies (archived) – Washington Post
- Trump administration, OpenAI discussing possible government stake in the AI startup – CNBC
- What we know about the plan to give Americans an equity stake in AI (archived) – FT
- The Road to AI State Socialism (archived) – WSJ Opinion
- Top Trump artificial intelligence adviser to leave the White House (archived) – Washington Post
The Swamp:
- THE ADRIATIC LAUNDROMAT – Dr. Sakri Kaia
How a Florida Mobster, a Qatari Billionaire, and the First Son-in-Law Carved Up Albania’s Protected Coastline - Elon Musk Laid Out 602 Goals. We Counted How Many He Hit. (Answer: < 20%) – NY Times
- John Bolton Reaches Deal to Plead Guilty Over Classified Information – NY Times
- CIA officer accused of stealing gold created fake ‘black box’ spy program (archived) – Washington Post
- Exclusive-Top US spy agencies feud over turf, mission – AOL
SoAm:
- Inventing “Machismo” in the US – Jstor
Academics and media turned “machismo” into a cultural stereotype during the Cold War. - Manufacturing Consent for Trump’s Invasion of Cuba – Naked Capitalism
- Attacking Cuba would be a huge mistake (archived) – Economist
- Trump’s unofficial Venezuela viceroy shapes U.S. policy, raising oversight concerns (archived) – Washington Post
Music:
- The Trees, (lyrics) – RUSH
- Closer To The Heart, (lyrics) – RUSH
Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Iran) thread …