Sunday, June 8, 2025

Links 6/8/2025

The Sunday Morning Movie Presents: Shadowlands (1993) Run Time: 2H 11M

Shadowlands is a beautiful movie about the love between C.S. Lewis, played by Anthony Hopkins, and Joy Gresham, played by Debra Winger.

Your Smartphone Is a Parasite, According To Evolution

Is having a smartphone worse than having head lice?

Links 6/7/2025

Michael Hudson: Trump’s Contradiction-Riddled Strategy to Preserve US Hegemony

Trump does have a plan to shore up America”s flagging power, even if, when you put the pieces together, it does not make much sense.

How Tourism Pushed Barcelona to Breaking Point, and How Social Movements Are Fighting Back

Barcelona features locals turning activists to curb tourism levels that hurt everyday life, particulalry for lower income. residents

Announcing New Coffee Break Writers!

Please welcome Nat Wilcox Turner and Curro Jimenez, who will be giving Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday Coffee Break features.

Coffee Break: Working Class Life in 17th-Century Italy, Science in Decline, AI and Scientific Understanding, and Neanderthal Art

Part the First. Tales from the Crypt. Subtitled The lives of 17th century Milan’s working poor – their health, diet, and drug habits – emerge from thousands of bodies buried under a public hospital.  This article appeared in Science on 1 May 2025: In 1456, the Duke of Milan established a medical institution dedicated to […]

Golden Dome Dangers: How Trump’s Scheme Threatens to Make the US Less Safe

Why Trump’s Golden Dome is set to backfire, except for the grift, which is presumably the real point.

Links 6/6/2025

China’s Quiet Rapprochement With Israel

“The war continues, but the war is not the theme of Israel-China bilateral relations.”

Satyajit Das: Lessons from Japan’s Massive Debt Hangover

While there are things the debt-addled West can learn from Japan, the dirty secret is they were in some key ways in better shape than we are.

Yanis Varoufakis: In the EU Nothing Succeeds Like Gross Failure: The Astonishing Case of Ursula von der Leyen

A much-deserved evisceration of both Ursuala von der Leyen and the chumps who’ve bought what she has been selling.

John Helmer: Putin Hits Pause Button on Oreshnik-Level Retaliation for Ukraine Strike on Russian Nuclear Deterrence Assets

In his latest talk with Ray McGovern on Dialogue Works, John Helmer gives far and away the best overview1 so far in the wake of Ukraine attacks on bridges and civilian trains, drone attacks targeting bombers in Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces, a failed new attack on Kerch Bridge, and phone discussions between Lavrov and Rubio […]

Links 6/5/2025