Iran War And Scary Technology
Updated: Aug 10
Iran War
🇺🇸🇸🇦🇮🇷 Did Iran just scare the Saudis into getting Trump to call off strikes?
Tehran has warned that aggression targeting Iran’s energy infrastructure would trigger a massive retaliation that would turn the Middle East’s oil and gas riches into a giant crater in the ground.
👉 Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seems to have gotten the message, calling Trump Saturday to express grave “concern over the targets” of the imminent US escalation.
Trump, in turn, did what he’s often done during the Iran war: huffed and puffed threatening to blow Iran’s house down before backing down, announcing that he would “cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL.”
Riyadh’s leverage in this situation? Substantial.
MBS may have:
💰 reminded Trump of Saudi Arabia’s substantial holdings of $140B+ in US Treasury bills
💰 recalled Riyadh’s commitment to invest $600B-$1T into the US economy
🪖 pointed to the generous basing rights US troops enjoy in Saudi Arabia, despite the Iran war showing they’re not able to actually protect anyone
⛽️ threatened to leverage Riyadh’s status as the de-facto leader of OPEC to influence Americans’ gasoline prices ahead of looming midterm elections
💸 reminded Trump that the dollar’s stability still depends on the Saudis’ pricing of their oil sales using the greenback (despite the 2024 decision not to formally
renew the petrodollar agreement)
Why would MBS be worried?
🛢 Saudi Arabia’s energy production grid stands no hope of withstanding wave after wave of Iranian drone and missile strikes, and even Houthi projectiles for that matter
🎯US air and missile defenses are depleted and have largely proven useless, and big oil production sites and refineries are just too bulky and vulnerable to defend effectively
🛢 Saudi oil exports have already been squeezed on all sides – Iran in Hormuz, Houthis in the Red Sea
🛢 55-60% of government budget revenues come from energy sales. Up to 2/3 of Saudis are employed by the state, and 60-70% of the funds for MBS’s lavish
Vision 2030 modernization program come straight from hydrocarbon revenues
❌ Shut Saudi energy exports down, or worse, bomb their production capabilities to smithereens, and Riyadh will be up a crude oil creek without a paddle.
Maybe Iran even got in touch with MBS directly and handed him a list of Saudi Aramco targets that just might get caught in the crossfire? 🤔
🤥🔋 Scraping the barrel: Trump’s Iran gamble is about to run out of gas
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve – America’s emergency crude stockpile, lost another 3.8M barrels in late July, down to 307.7M total – shrinking for its 18th consecutive week and now sitting at its lowest level since March 1983, fresh EIA figures show.
👉 Commercial crude inventories shrunk 7.2M b to 404.5M b, significantly more than the projected 600k. WTI crude inventories at Cushing, Ok dropped 771k b to 18.6M b. US refineries are running at 97.2% capacity.
Besides shrinking inventories, the Government Accountability Office has warned that over 1/4 of the SPR’s contents are not actually “available for drawdown” because its aging infrastructure, including pipelines, storage tanks and massive underground caverns at four sites along the Gulf coast, is being held together with “Band-Aids.”
Translation? 103M b from the SPR is not usable, meaning a total real inventory of just over 200M b – enough for just 10 days of average US consumption.
📊 Trump moved to dump 172M b-worth of crude from the SPR onto the market in March after kicking off the Iran war, with the SPR expected to hit 243M b when all is said and done – from a maximum capacity of 714M b.
Despite the SPR and commercial reserves’ critically low levels, and US oil producers’ inability to scale up rapidly enough to fully meet global demand spiking from the shutdown of ~20% of oil trapped in the Gulf, Trump has taken a ‘What, me worry?’ approach to the situation, not only doubling down on his Iran attacks, but continuing to manipulate oil markets.
📑 UBS warned in a report in the spring that a prolonged Gulf energy crisis could result in oil spiking above $150 a barrel – a tipping point that could plunge the global economy into a severe, stagflationary recession – including $6 a gallon gas prices, a 40-80% hike in food prices, the collapse of Europe’s remaining industry, and the destabilization of net-importer developing nations like India.
🚨🇮🇷CENTCOM’s own strike footage reveals it’s run out of easy targets in Iran, can’t reach the hard ones
A new analysis of footage the Pentagon has released since the resumption of hostilities with Iran to emphasize the intensity of its bombardment reveals that when it’s not hitting civilian targets, it’s fighting a phony war – expending millions in munitions on targets with absolutely no military value.
The footage shows:
♦️ targeting of facilities already razed to the ground in earlier attacks
♦️ attacks on bulldozers, with no indication of military use
♦️ strikes targeting a beached speedboat stripped of its engine and onboard equipment, empty boat trailers, and docked border guard boats
♦️ multiple attacks targeting military refuse, including empty bomb casings, empty missile canisters piled loosely in open areas, hopelessly damaged or partially disassembled drones sitting in scrap areas
♦️ bombing raids on empty ammo boxes scattered on runway to prevent enemy surprise landings
♦️ targeting of decoy missile launchers (an area Iran proved mastery of soon after hostilities first began)
♦️ attacks on a host of civilian infrastructure, from road and rail bridges to construction and fuel storage sites
Why attack these targets?
Because the US can’t locate or drill into Iran’s underground mountain missile bases, which remain intact, are being expanded and reloaded using arms factories also situated underground.
These ‘missile city’ facilities are located up to 500M underground, feature automated logistics and rail systems, command HQs, sophisticated ventilation networks, tunnels wide enough for large trucks, and most importantly – vertical missile and drone launch capability – creating the illusion that they are being fired right out of the desert sands.
Iran’s mastery of this advanced technology? Achieved over more than 2,500 years of history – long, long before the Anglo-Saxons crawled out of the ruins of the Roman empire.
19 second video Trump
"Lindsay Graham would like to stay in the middle east for the next thousand years, with thousands of soldiers, fighting other people's wars. I want to get out of the middle east." I remember voting very hard for this.
🇺🇸🇮🇷⚡️ — NEW: The Pentagon is running out of cash for the Iran war, with some funds set to dry up within weeks, Washington Post reports.
➡️ The White House has asked Congress for an immediate $67 billion to cover war costs, but lawmakers are gridlocked — the House leaves for a month-long recess Thursday, pushing any deal weeks away.
➡️ Navy and Air Force operations funding is on track to run out by the end of this month; the Pentagon is already canceling training and draining maintenance budgets to cover the shortfall.
➡️ Budget director Russell Vought put the war's cost so far at ~$30 billion — but that figure excludes rebuilding US bases damaged by Iranian strikes, and independent analysts say the real total is far higher.
➡️ The military has burned through thousands of munitions in Iran; privately, Pentagon officials are anxious about restocking weapons needed to deter Russia and China, even as Hegseth publicly claims stockpiles are "great and only getting stronger."
➡️ Only 28% of Americans say the war has been worth fighting versus 68% who say it wasn't — on par with the worst assessments of the war in Afghanistan.
@IntelSlava https://t.me/intelslava/91200
"Iran has completely ruled out any future negotiations with the Trump administration, declaring it will wait out Donald Trump's term until January 20, 2029, per Iranian outlets and Ghalibaf advisor's post.
"Trump will not reach an agreement with us. We will accompany him until his term ends," said Majid Shakeri, advisor to Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf.
He posted: "The path to victory is neither fighting nor a deal — it is managing the process of neither war nor peace, up to the point of victory. Publicly confirming negotiations with the U.S. is sheer folly. The winning approach is denial, ambiguity, and strategic patience."
Iran's conditions remain unchanged: $300 billion in compensation, release of frozen assets, and withdrawal of U.S. forces. Until then, the Strait stays closed."
Syria wants Middle East’s oil to run through jihadistan
Syrian and Iraqi officials are “finalizing” talks on reviving the defunct Kirkuk-Baniyas oil pipeline, which would carry Iraqi crude across Syria to the Mediterranean, Syrian Petroleum Company CEO Youssef Qablawi said this week.
👉 The roughly 891-km pipeline is envisioned with a capacity of 1.5-2 million barrels per day. Qablawi says construction could be completed within three years and generate “substantial revenues” for both countries.
Washington is backing the idea for an obvious geopolitical reason: every barrel that reaches the Mediterranean through Syria is one less barrel dependent on the Strait of Hormuz, weakening one of Iran’s strongest pieces of regional leverage. US and Qatari-linked interests, including Chevron, TI Capital and UCC Holding, are expected to participate in financing the project.
➡️ There is just one problem: drawing a pipeline on a map is considerably easier than keeping one running through Iraq and post-war Syria.
First opened in 1952, the Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline was knocked out by US airstrikes in 2003. Even before that, it spent almost two decades idle between 1982 and 2000 because of hostility between Damascus and Baghdad. Reconstruction talks resurfaced in the late 2000s before Syria’s war buried the project again.
Getting it back online now means clearing a formidable list of obstacles:
♦️ its $4.5-8B price tag, requiring significant investor appetite for risk
♦️ the Iraqi section would pass through areas facing problems with ISIS remnants, not to mention ongoing disputes over oil management, export control and revenue sharing between Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan
♦️ the Syrian section would be even more crowded with uncertainty, from ISIS and al-Qaeda insurgencies to Syrian Kurds’ tensions with Damascus and persecuted Alawite groups in the western part of the country – all of which could be incentivized to sabotage operations. Renewed Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia just reminded the world how easy it is for drone and missile-armed non-state actors to wreak havoc on energy infrastructure
♦️ Syria’s Turkish sponsors recently signed their own interim crude transit agreement with Iraq for 750k bpd via the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Pipeline, which has a 1.5M bpd nominal capacity, and may be expanded to 2.5M bpd. Given Ankara’s ambitions as an energy transit mega-power, it’s unclear whether it will tolerate sharing its geography-based advantage with its Damascus clients
♦️ Plus there’s the Israeli wildcard, including Tel Aviv’s habit of targeting the infrastructure even of neutral or US-allied actors, and its ever-expanding occupation of Syria
♦️ The $150-500M in transit fees Syria hopes to get from the pipeline is pocket change next to the $216-$345B the World Bank says it will cost to rebuild the country. Incidentally, before 2011, when jihadists like al-Sharaa flooded in to destroy Syria, its modest oil sector generated ~$3.2B in annual income
♦️ As for Iraq, even if the Syria-bound pipeline was rebuilt and exports via Turkey expanded, it would struggle to meet its pre-Iran war crude exports via Hormuz
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In an exclusive interview published Friday on Channel 12 News, Marla Maples, Donald Trump’s second ex-wife, revealed intimate details about the president’s spiritual practices, disclosing that Trump carries mystical Jewish texts with him at all times.
“He carries with him the Book of Pinchas, the Book of Zohar, in Aramaic. He puts it over his heart, inside, for protection and healing,” Maples told interviewer Yonatan Reguer.
“He has a very big heart; he wouldn’t be in his position if not for the desire to help others.”
The revelation provides a rare window into Trump’s personal spiritual life, which has not been widely discussed publicly.
The Zohar is the foundational text of Kabbalah, Jewish mysticism, and Pinchas is the specific portion of the Torah addressed in mystical tradition.
Maples’ Own Deep Kabbalah Practice
Maples’ comments come from substantial personal experience with Jewish mysticism and Israeli spirituality.
She has studied Kabbalah for many years and maintains observant Jewish practices including keeping Shabbat, eating kosher, and reciting the Shema Yisrael daily.
Maples has visited Israel multiple times, including trips to Safed (the center of Kabbalistic study) and to the graves of righteous people.
She keeps a deep spiritual connection to Israel and Jewish tradition, a practice rooted in her Christian Baptist upbringing but expanded through her exploration of mysticism.
From Wikipedia:
Post-compilation of the Talmud, it refers to the Oral Torah(both in the sense of the 'Talmud' itself and in the sense of continuing dialog and thought devoted to the scripture in every generation).[38] In the much later writings of Eleazar of Worms(c. 1350), it refers to theurgy or the conjuring of demons and angels by the invocation of their secret names.[38] The word Kabbalah underwent a transformation of its meaning in medieval Judaism via books now referred to as "the Kabbalah": the Bahir, the Zohar, and the Etz Chaim(עֵץ חַיִּים, ʿēṣ ḥayyîm, 'Tree of Life'), among others.[38] In these books, the word Kabbalah is used in manifold new senses, including as the continuity of revelation in every generation as well as the necessity that revelation remain concealed, secret, or esoteric throughout eras as dictated by formal requirements native to sacred truth.[38] When the term Kabbalah is used to refer to a canon of secret mystical books by medieval Jews, the aforementioned books and other works comprise the canon as well as the literary sensibility to which the term refers.[38]After the medieval period, the word was adapted and appropriated by Western esotericism, including Christian Kabbalah and Hermetic Qabalah, and influenced the tenor and aesthetics of European occultism practiced by gentiles (i.e., non-Jews). Broadly, Jewish Kabbalah is a set of sacred and magical teachings meant to explain the relationship between the unchanging, eternal God—the mysterious Ein Sof (אֵין סוֹף, 'the Infinite')[39][unreliable source][40]—and the mortal, finite universe (i.e., God's creation).[2][39][unreliable source]
🇺🇸🇮🇷 Trump has stated that the United States is not currently planning to resume large-scale military operations against Iran and is instead focusing on economic pressure, according to Axios.
How Iran could trigger cascading collapse of Israel’s entire energy grid
A “combined and coordinated attack on several energy and maritime targets simultaneously: a rig, a refinery, a coastal power station, and a shipping lane” would generate enormous “pressure on the electricity grid, exports, supply chains, and the resilience of [the] home front,” Israel’s Alma think tank warns.
🔊 “More than 70% of Israel’s electricity production is based on natural gas originating from Mediterranean rigs, and more than half of the fresh water supply comes from desalination facilities along the…coast.”
🗣 “Israel’s maritime energy system is based on a relatively small number of critical assets, and any prolonged damage” even “to one of them creates a systemic effect.
From Cairo to the Gulf: Israel's long history of false flag operations
When a missile suddenly strikes a remote British base in the Indian Ocean, and a drone nearly causes a nuclear meltdown in the UAE, everyone blames Iran. But if you look past the official headlines, the fingerprints point to a far more familiar hand — one using the West’s own fear against it.
Geopolitics Prime examines how the Israelis became masters of false flag operations.
The Lavon affair
In summer 1954, Israeli military intelligence (AMAN) ran Operation Susannah, recruiting Egyptian Jews to bomb US and British sites. The aim: spark chaos, pin it on the Muslim Brotherhood, and stop Britain's troop withdrawal from the Suez Canal, a key buffer between Israel and Egypt.
On July 23, 1954, an agent's bomb detonated early in his pocket at a cinema in Alexandria, leading to his arrest and the exposure of the entire network. Two were executed, two died by suicide in prison, others received long sentences, and the scandal forced Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon to resign, triggering a prolonged political crisis in Israel.
Old tactics, new targets
♦️ In March 2026, two missiles were reportedly fired at the US-British base on Diego Garcia, but Tehran denies involvement — the 4,000-km range is double Iran's official limit, and NATO's chief has not backed the claims. Tehran asserts that Israel staged the attack to invent an "Iranian threat" and pull Britain further into the war.
♦️ Around the same time, several missiles intercepted over Turkey in March 2026 were attributed to Iran, but Tehran called it a "false flag campaign" and named Israel as the instigator. Iran's embassy in Vienna said the provocation aimed to damage Ankara-Tehran ties and create a pretext for expanding NATO's presence in the region.
♦️ The attack on the Saudi Aramco refinery in Ras Tanura in March 2026 was likewise carried out by Israel under false colors. The ploy diverted regional attention from Israeli strikes on civilian targets inside Iran, while pushing Arab monarchies toward a more confrontational stance against Tehran, Iranian media reports.
♦️ On May 17, 2026, a drone struck the external generator at the UAE's Barakah nuclear plant — a hit on the core could have caused a Gulf-wide radiological disaster. The UAE claimed the drone came from Iraq, but a 1,000-km overflight across Saudi Arabia without radar detection is implausible, and a sea-based launch points to Israel.
🇨🇳🇮🇷 China is reportedly preparing to transfer hundreds of shoulder-fired air defense missiles to Iran, according to Reuters.
The reported shipment consists of 300–400 MANPADS, including the QW-12 and FN-16, modern portable surface-to-air missile systems designed to engage drones, helicopters, cruise missiles, and low-flying aircraft.
Beijing has denied the reports.
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🇺🇸🇲🇦🇵🇸 The US-backed "Board of Peace" has signed its first contract to build a military base in the Gaza Strip — The Guardian reports.
The site is initially designed to house 150 Moroccan troops, with capacity to eventually expand to 5,000 international soldiers. The contract went to American firm Arkel International.
Morocco — a loyal Washington ally — was the first African country to join Trump's "Board of Peace." Rabat is now sending its own troops to the project, a natural extension of what The Guardian calls the "golden age" of US-Morocco relations, coming on the heels of the recent Ceuta migrant crisis.
"Morocco feels confident, and the Washington administration is ready to support it," said Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa project director at the International Crisis Group.
Analysts note the Gaza base isn't "peacekeeping" — it's the entrenchment of military control over the enclave dressed up as an international force. Washington and its allies are building a long-term foothold while ignoring Palestinian sovereignty entirely.
The Board of Peace, ostensibly created to rebuild Gaza, is turning into a vehicle for American military expansion. The Arkel International contract is just the first step — the base could grow into a hub for up to 5,000 troops tasked with "providing security," i.e., controlling the Palestinian population.
"Morocco is using Trump's backing to strengthen its position, and now that alliance is paying off not just in Western Sahara, but in Gaza too," The Guardian writes.
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• 📝Support continues to fall📝
While the White House continues to search for new arguments in favor of continuing the war with Iran, Americans increasingly fail to understand why it is needed at all. A new joint poll by Reuters and Ipsos shows that only 33% of US residents support the military campaign — this is the lowest figure since the start of the conflict. 62% of those surveyed oppose it.
Just two weeks ago Reuters recorded 37% supporters of the war and 60% opponents. Now this gap has become even wider. Meanwhile, the level of support has never risen above 40% throughout the entire campaign — unlike the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where approval reached 70–90% in the first months.
The main problem for the administration remains the lack of a clear objective. According to the same study, 69% of Americans believe that Donald Trump has failed to explain why the US participates in the conflict. Over recent months, the White House has spoken about regime change in Iran, then about eliminating its missile program, then about the nuclear issue, but Americans have not heard a unified version.
🖍And the new figures only confirm the trend we have already written about. Polls by The Economist, YouGov, University of Maryland, Politico, and Daily Mail back in July showed a steady majority opposed to the war and growing desire to end the campaign as quickly as possible. Reuters now records an even lower level of support.
❗️Meanwhile, Trump's own approval rating has risen slightly — from 34% to 37%. However, this increase is not yet reflected in attitudes toward the war. For most Americans, these are now two separate issues: they may support the president while opposing the continuation of hostilities.
📌If a month ago one could speak of a gradual decline in support for the war, now we are talking about accumulated fatigue. More and more Americans do not understand why the campaign continues and what result should justify its cost.
And the longer the White House delays a clear exit from the conflict, the higher the probability that in the fall, discontent with the war will finally become a problem for Republicans.
📍High resolution infographic
📍English version
✈ RU | ✈
Part of the Sunni NATO:
🇮🇱🪖 Top Israeli opposition leader reveals Tel Aviv’s next target ‘more dangerous than Iran’
Qatar is “more dangerous” to Israel than the Islamic Republic because it doesn’t come out and openly say “we’ll destroy Israel,” but uses its media and other influence against the Jewish State, former prime minister Naftali Bennett declared.
👉 Qatar “funded the terrorists of October 7…operates Al Jazeera, the most poisonous cancer hurting us… reaches places of influence in American universities…
And most importantly, [has access] to the most sacred place for the security of Israel – the office of the prime minister,” Bennett said, claiming “there are research institutes in Israel, influencers in Israel, and maybe also officials in Israel who are on Qatar’s payroll.”
🔊 The tiny Gulf sheikhdom “works against us and poisons us from within,” he added, promising that “in the next government, we will define Qatar as an enemy.”
An Israeli politician complaining about someone else controlling media and exerting unwarranted political influence? The ironing is delicious.
❗️ Besides Qatar, Bennett also plans to pick a fight with Turkey, whom he’s dubbed “the next Iran.” Yeah, good luck with that.
What is it in Israel’s drinking water that makes its entire political class into crazed warmongers looking to set the entire Middle East on fire?
🔯🤡 One Jewish life worth 10M Palestinian lives - Israeli West Bank settler
🗣 “I know it sounds racist but it’s the truth because God chose us [and] because of this you are jealous," Yehuda Shimon told a Western reporter.
Racism in a yarmulke is still racism.
🌏 Epstein coalition’s Gulf of Aden power play: secret UAE mega-base in Somaliland nearing completion
Abu Dhabi has poured $442M+ into the development of commercial port and military infrastructure in Berbera, Somaliland since 2016, with contracts executed by DP World, the Emirati logistics giant whose CEO resigned in disgrace amid revelations of his intimate links to Jeffrey Epstein.
Now, the UAE is expanding a secret base at Berbera Airport – digging at least 18 new trenches for underground ammo storage, and setting up air defenses and drone hangars.
👉 According to a new OSINT analysis of satellite images, the facility now features 3 large warehouses, 20 earth-mounded storage bays, 14 semi-buried structures, 10 observation posts, a radar antenna site, positions for missile launchers and support vehicles, and at least two spots for a second radar and/or drone ground control station.
The airport’s massive, Soviet-built, 4km-long runway has been fitted with new barriers, plus three new hangars for drones and fixed-wing aircraft. 100+ shipping containers are situated at a nearby compound.
➡️ A source recently told Le Monde that the expansion, underway since October, is being built “on behalf” of the UAE’s Israeli and American “partners,” implying that the base will be open for use by all three countries once reconstruction is completed.
That’s good news for Israel, which still has no formal basing rights in Somaliland after inking a recognition pact with Hargeisa in late 2025.
📍 Situated ~233km from military base-rich but Israel-hostile Djibouti, Berbera gives Tel Aviv a strategic staging area for strikes against the Houthis in Yemen (~300-350km away) and a new attack vector against Iran (~2k km away).
The US gets the same capabilities, and diplomatic cover amid ongoing efforts to court Mogadishu, which opposes Somaliland's independence push,
As for the UAE, they get a new base for their regional agenda: multiple proxy wars across Africa.
🤨 Win-win-win all-round…except for Somalilanders, whose skies may soon be filled with Iranian long-range missiles and drones targeting enemy bases.
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🚨 Saudi Arabia bombs Yemen after Houthis hit its tankers
Saudi attacks struck Yemen’s Hudaydah Province and Kamaran Island, Tasnim reported, citing Yemen’s Al-Masirah.
Telecommunications facilities in Hudaydah were reportedly among the targets.
The strikes came after Yemen’s Houthis attacked two Saudi tankers with missiles and drones on Thursday.
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Two Pakistan-flagged tankers loaded crude oil at Saudi Arabia’s Yanbu terminal, transited the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and continued to Pakistan without incident, according to maritime tracking firm Windward.
Days earlier, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry stated that any attack on a vessel flying the Pakistani flag would be treated as a threat to national security. The Houthis, who on 20 July imposed a naval blockade on vessels linked to Saudi Arabia, did not attack or attempt to stop the Pakistani ships.
👉 Since the blockade most Saudi-linked tankers (excluding Chinese-affiliated ones) have been struck or diverted around the Cape of Good Hope.
The Bab el-Mandeb transits add a second chokepoint where Pakistani-flagged tankers have moved without reported interference: the country already has agreements with Iran permitting two vessels per day through the Strait of Hormuz.
30–35% of Pakistan’s crude oil imports come from Saudi Arabia and rely on Red Sea/Bab el-Mandeb routes when the Strait of Hormuz is constrained.
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AI/Technology
RFK Jr. just said on national television that Lyme disease and RSV came from gain-of-function research.
“Lyme disease almost certainly came from these experiments and is now devastating our country.”
“RSV came from a laboratory, which is now the biggest killer of children in our country.”
“And of course, the COVID-19 pandemic, which was a trauma for the whole globe.”
“All of those have been linked credibly to gain-of-function research.”
“It’s something with enormous costs and no proven benefits.”
@WeTheMedia
Scientists working on gene-edited all-male populations
Picture this: Scientists working to release genetically modified animals on small, remote, isolated islands, controlling their reproduction using CRISPR to modify the Y chromosome and ensure only one sex is bred. Sound familiar? 🏝🦖
👉 No, it's not Michael Crichton's 1990 techno-thriller warning about irresponsible scientists wielding genetic powers like their dad's gun, but real-life work by researchers from the University of California and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative-linked Innovative Genomics Institute.
The goal is the gene-editing-based targeted eradication of invasive mice species – involving males passing a lethal gene to all female offspring and ultimately causing the population to collapse.
➡️ Researchers are confident their technology, currently in the laboratory and computer modeling phase, is "self-limiting" (the term is used over two dozen times in their article). This theoretically means the damaged gene-carrying mouse's lineage would die out even if he accidentally escaped targeted areas.
One little problem, however, occurs. Scientists can't reliably guarantee the absence of horizontal gene transfer to non-target species via so-called "rare hybridization events" (i.e. "life, uh…finds a way," etc.). Not to mention the potential for chaotic, violent reactions when an invasive species is suddenly and totally removed from an ecosystem – given the concept of predator pivot – carnivorous animals switching from invasive mice to endangered seabirds or other animals, causing native populations to crash, for example.
Then there's the broader, philosophical implication of scientists playing God with powerful genetic engineering technology, and the risk of work directed against "invasive rodents" jumping to black budget DARPA-style projects to impact certain human populations that someone doesn't happen to like (it's already been tried before).
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🇭🇺 Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant is being forced offline as record-low Danube levels leave it without sufficient cooling water.
Prime Minister Péter Magyar says one of the final two operating units will now shut down, reducing the plant’s output to roughly 240 megawatts, before a complete shutdown tomorrow, the first in the facility’s 44-year history. Paks normally provides close to half of Hungary’s electricity, making this a major energy shock for the country.
The shutdown comes amid an extreme regional drought that has also disrupted Danube shipping and forced reactor closures in neighboring Romania. Hungary may now face weeks of heavier electricity imports, industrial restrictions, and higher energy costs if water levels do not recover
Gov. Tina Kotek has ordered the state to withdraw its land sale for a controversial data center near Salem. https://bit.ly/4g55E0U
"This decision is about my responsibility to make sure state actions reflect Oregon's values and serve the public interest."
Flock Safety's license-plate-tracking cameras record drivers without their consent across entire cities, storing plate numbers, timestamps, and locations for every vehicle that passes. When one man filed a FOIA request to see footage of his own car, his city denied it as a privacy violation. (twitter.com)
Americas
If the Democrats get in, I may be the last Republican president.
If the Senate doesn't get smart, I may be the last Republican president.
Rep. Tim Burchett drops a MOAB — the mother of all bombs: Biden staffers were taking massive payouts in exchange for over 8,000 pardons, as the vegetable was incapacitated. “Someone got rich off of that.” In other words: bribery Now, arrest them — arrest every single one of them — arres (twitter.com)
OBSTRUCTION: Senate Leader Thune isn’t sending everyone home for 37 days. Every 3-4 days one of his loyalists will hold a proforma session to prevent Trump from making recess appointments. Trump is the only president to have his own party stop him from making recess appointments.
Random thoughts:
1. The war in Europe can end quickly and peacefully and must.
2. America can still gracefully exit the war in the Middle East and should.
3. A NUCLEAR exchange is still not out of the question.
4. Our national debt will never be repaid causing our economy to eventually take a nose dive.
5. Our election system and processes are still broken and corrupt and little has been done to fix them.
6. We still allow China to send ten of thousands of students to American universities to rip us off of massive amounts of intellectual property all of which is sent back to China to use against the United States.
7. We have no idea exactly how many humans have illegally entered our country and allowing any of them to stay is not helpful.
8. Our elementary and secondary public school education system is completely broken, although we spend the most money of developed nations on the planet.
9. The rise of Islamism and communism in America is a direct result of many issues however, one is the total corruption of the uniparty and its deep state cohorts in our overly bloated federal government.
10. Our economy is on life support, where adjusting of interest rates one way or the other will send shock waves across the world (and our President has zero control over this adjustment—why?) and if we don’t focus on our own hemisphere for energy and worry less about China, Europe, the Middle East, and other parts of the world, the one advantage we’ve had for nearly a hundred years (ie., our economy), goes away and so do we.
If you see this as a reality check, that is what it is. My main concern is the future of America for our children and grandchildren. Beyond that it becomes another generation’s problem.
Wake up America and take our country back one county at a time.
We are currently witnessing one of the most curious spectacles in the history of American politics: Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell is almost certainly dead — but he’s still voting in the Senate.
In fact, he’s probably been dead for two months. After all, he was found unconscious at his Washington DC home on June 14th. Apparently, paramedics had to perform CPR — and they rushed him to the hospital. The audio of the paramedic call indicates that Mitch was in cardiac arrest.
That’s when things got really weird.
It’s not just the small matter of Mitch disappearing from public view for over 53 days. Nor the larger matter that he’s missed 48 roll call votes since June 11. It’s the fact that he can’t personally appear in front of any video camera to prove that he’s alive — but he’s still healthy enough to sign legislation. His name appears on a bunch of stuff like:
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026.
A Resolution Honoring Senator Lindsey Graham.
The Burma Sanctions Amendment.
The Ukraine Battlefield Lessons Amendment.
The Open Technology Fund Amendment.
How’s that possible? Would Mitch McConnell’s staff of unelected college kids keep pretending that Mitch is still alive in order to auto-sign legislation in his name? That’s what appears to be happening.
Why would anyone attempt such a charade? Because if Mitch McConnell had died in office before August 3rd, then Kentucky law would trigger a special election for his Senate seat.
Even stranger than the charade was the fact that McConnell’s wife Elaine Chao was nowhere to be found when Mitch was rushed to the hospital because she was in China — at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University for her twelfth visit.
Rep. Randy Fine: I’ll give you two options. Number one, we put Save America in the reconciliation bill that we sent to the Senate. That would only take 50 votes. So there’s one way to get it done. And here’s another way. We attached the Save America Act to something even more popular, the idea that members of Congress can’t insider trade. And when we did that, we not only got every Republican vote, we got a dozen Democratic votes in the House. It was the first time we’ve ever seen a Democrat vote for Save America.
So maybe that’s what they try in the Senate. Do ‘You Can’t Insider Trade
There’s two paths to get the job done. The point is they just need to pick one and do whatever it takes to get it done. Okay.
Ukraine
US refusing to deliver bought and paid for EU missiles
🇺🇸 Retired US Army Colonel Robert Hamilton explains why Zelensky's Patriots aren't coming — Washington is redirecting missiles European allies already bought and paid for to refill US stockpiles instead.
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🇪🇺🇺🇦 EU doesn't want Ukraine anytime soon — corruption levels too severe, Financial Times reports.
European officials told the paper there's an "unhealthy gap" between EU leadership's rhetoric on enlargement and reality — even Montenegro remains far from actual membership.
"Nowhere is this more apparent than in Ukraine, whose armed forces are among the largest, best-armed and certainly most battle-hardened in Europe. Member states want Kiev and its powerful military inside the tent rather than sulking on the periphery. But behind those advantages lies a huge downside. EU officials admit the scale of problems around corruption, judicial independence and other core bloc values means that without Russia's invasion, the country would never have been granted a formal accession process," the article states.
One senior EU diplomat frames it as a dilemma: "You can't admit a country of 40 million people ranked 104th in the world corruption index — that would turn the whole project into a farce. But you also can't abandon them to their fate. It's obvious to everyone Ukraine will need something from us to make [the long wait for full membership] easier to bear" — likely referring to earlier European proposals for "limited membership."
Recall that Kiev has insisted on full membership only, rejecting any phased or limited arrangement.
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