New study reports largest-ever population estimate for Seychelles’ giant tortoises EurekAlert!
New thorium nuclear clock runs unaided for 24 hours, errs 1 second in 30 million years Interesting Engineering
Does the ‘Week Without Driving’ Give Car-Free Living A Bad Rap? Streetsblog
Why John Coltrane Matters ZZ’s Blog
Climate/Environment
Britons kept in dark about scale of climate crisis, say viewers of ‘first-of-its-kind’ emergency briefing The Guardian
Hurricane Isaias is a typical storm — but it’s also ‘astounding’ Grist
ForecastEx prediction market probabilities for Hurricane Isaias are appearing live on Bloomberg TV. https://t.co/wGi2zG4mR1
— Patrick T. Brown (@PatrickTBrown31) October 8, 2026
Pandemics
Long COVID May Be Burning Out The Brain’s Reward System Science Alert
The Koreas
South Korea recalls ambassador to Ukraine over North Korean POW row Intellinews
China?
EU weighs safeguard tariffs as China refuses hybrid car limits Asia Times
Southeast Asia
US opens direct talks with Myanmar’s generals, reversing years of isolation Channel News Asia
India
India’s rate hike a loud warning shot for Modinomics Asia Times
Modi Won. India Lost. Countercurrents
Syraqistan
Why Hamas believed the status quo was more dangerous than its 7 October gamble Middle East Eye
Trump says he will not attack Iran before the midterm election CNN
Military ordered to be ready for possible Iran strikes as Trump weighs timing Axios
Iran war could force Israel to postpone election, IDF chief tells US officials Ynet
‘Too Many Lies’: Netanyahu’s Ex-Military Secretary Challenges Prime Minister’s October 7 Account Haaretz
WHAT ISRAEL WANTS FROM IRAN Seymour Hersh. Absurd on many levels.
How a U.S. Diplomat Suppressed and Altered Reports Critical of Israel New York Times
Pakistani jets strike Yemen as Turkiye deploys hundreds of troops to support Saudi war: Report The Cradle
Ansar Allah Pounds Saudi Airports as Yemen War Escalates Antiwar
Africa
Eritrean troops enter Ethiopia’s Tigray as renewed fighting raises fears of regional war The Cradle
O Canada
Ensuring that the Unions’ Bark will be Worse than their Bite The Bullet
Old Blighty
Posturing to the World: The Costs of Britain’s Global Military and Expansive Strategy. Transition Security Project
Seventh man bailed in connection with RAF Fairford incident BBC
UK police charge Royal Navy member accused of working with foreign power Al Jazeera
UK refuses to comment after Israel freezes ‘military dialogue and security cooperation’ Middle East Eye
European Disunion
What’s the Matter With France? Paul Krugman. Pensioners, of course. And Krugman here is representative of messaging from the IMF, ECB, etc. A few points omitted from their discussion:
- Strasbourg Policy Centre, June 2025:
The Cour des Comptes has warned that the pension deficit is likely to stabilize at around 6.6 billion euro until 2025 to 2030 but this temporary reprieve is misleading. The deficit is estimated to spiral to the significantly high value of 15 billion euros by 2035 and possibly up to about 30 billion euros by 2045 unless new reforms are implemented.
2. Breaking Defense, April 2026:
France today announced a €36 billion ($42 billion) boost to its defense budget for the next four years as part of an updated military planning law, while also mulling the development of a new, stopgap, main battle tank.
The revised bill, presented on April 8 by the French Armed Forces Minister Catherine Vautrin, earmarks €63.3 billion ($74 billion) for defense in 2027, a figure that has doubled over the last ten years. It also projects that the country’s total defense spending will reach €76.3 billion ($89.1 billion) by the end of the decade.
From September, still germane:
We have a new study on the macro and fiscal implications of structurally higher defence spending in the EU (requested by the ECON committee of the European Parliament). We assess the National Escape Clause and quantify fiscal consolidation pressures from defence spending 🧵 https://t.co/qt3B7NWV7G
— Philipp Heimberger (@heimbergecon) September 16, 2026
Le Pen’s Fiscal Plan for France Cannot Possibly Work, Will Voter’s Care? Mish Talk
Disruption to Insurrection Black Lodges
EU exec rejects Greek, Italian requests for more fiscal rules flexibility Reuters
Trump’s Statue at the European Parliament is “Offensive”: Slovak PM TeleSur
New Not-So-Cold War
US, Russia discuss possibility of selling gas to Europe via Nord Stream Meduza
Germany’s AfD and BSW have used their new joint majority in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament to demand an end to German military and financial support for Ukraine and the immediate lifting of economic sanctions on Russia.
Their joint motion also calls for an immediate ceasefire, peace negotiations with Moscow and the normalisation of German-Russian economic relations.
— Brian McDonald (@BrianMcDonaldIE) October 8, 2026
“Ukraine is winning!” — we keep hearing from Western keyboard warriors and Ukrainian turbo-patriots bravely fighting Putin from their sofas in Berlin and Warsaw.
Meanwhile, back in Kyiv, ordinary residents are already “celebrating” the glorious approach of victory by spending hours a day without electricity.
Today, the metro ground to a halt on all three lines.
Buses not running? No problem! Walking everywhere is excellent cardio. Who needs public transport when you can build character?
People are washing themselves in buckets and basins — a charming return to medieval hygiene.
And mind you, it’s still over 20°C outside. Winter hasn’t even started. The real Victory Survival Challenge is yet to come!
Meanwhile, their genius of a mayor tells people to leave the city. Brilliant advice! As if every ordinary Kyiv resident has a spare villa in Spain and a luxury apartment in Dubai waiting for them.
As if ordinary Ukrainians spent all these years getting rich off Western aid like all of Zelensky’s buddies.
So, what’s next on the glorious Roadmap to Victory™?
Pooping into buckets and dumping the contents into the Dnipro?
— Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta) October 8, 2026
The population of Kiev is being told to shit in plastic bags. https://t.co/Ubdmo1GH8c
— Russians With Attitude (@RWApodcast) October 8, 2026
For Ukrainians in the US, a last-ditch effort to forestall deportation Politico
NATO Military Committee Made First Visit to Kyiv in 8 Years Kyiv Post
Chekhov’s nuke Events in Ukraine
South of the Border
Mexico Takes Steps to Tackle Reduced Natural Gas Supplies from U.S. TeleSur
Arson Attack at Brazilian University after Threats from Bolsonaro Supporters TVT News
Brazil’s Flavio Bolsonaro wins third-place candidate’s support against Lula France24
Trump 2.0
Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will be livestreamed AP
Trump Admits He Wants to Privatize Social Security Truthout
Midterms 2026
Niki Frenchko is an Ohio Republican & one of few politicos who FOUGHT when private equity looted her hospital. Known as a smokeshow chaos agent in the Boebert vein, she lost a May primary vs AIPAC Rep David Joyce
Her endorsement of Sherrod Brown today is emphatic & inspiring: https://t.co/C1sYAOjFHN
— moe tkacik (@moetkacik) October 8, 2026
Obama Legacy
Obama Foundation and Presidential Center workers to unionize: ‘We don’t even have a seat at the table’ Chicago Sun-Times
Police State Watch
ICE probed hundreds of voter registration groups across the U.S. Democracy Docket
Emails show how ICE trimmed training for deputized officers WaPo
ICE agent fires 7 rounds, shoots man in neck in NYC’s Marble Hill, NYPD says Gothamist
Immigration
Immigration enforcement is rare at Nebraska’s ag worksites. Why? Flatwater Free Press
Trump administration blocks tech companies from visa program Semafor
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
Watch Footage of the Flock Search a Judge Ruled Unconstitutional 404 Media
The Accelerationists
The Tech Bros Are Putting Swords on Robots and ‘Democratizing MMA’ Gizmodo
Having long been aware of those tech bros who read my work as utopian porn, where they’ve taken that doesn’t exactly surprise me.
— William Gibson (@GreatDismal) October 9, 2026
AI
OpenAI Expects $70 Billion in Annualized Revenue by End of 2026 Bloomberg
someone took “vibe coding” way too literally
a dev built an open-source claude code plugin that hooks your coding agent up to adult toys
it’s called vibeclaude
claude starts thinking → buzz
writes code → buzz
tool call works → buzz
tool call fails → harder buzz
task done → three pulses
it even handles multiple agents running at once
mit license, fully open source
we spent years making ai feel more human. now humans get to feel every single tool call
not sure this is what they meant by pair programming
https://t.co/Ja3Wm7pw57
— QFS17 (@riabcevv) October 8, 2026
Anthropic bans ‘abusive or cruel behavior’ toward Claude The Verge
Agriculture
U.S. farm debt is at a record high. Official data might be undercounting it Reuters
The Friendly Skies
Club Med, a Disney Cruise and an Exploding Starship: SpaceX Used Bystander Videos to Track Falling Debris ProPublica
Economy
Refinery outages pumping up fuel prices more than cost of crude oil Dallas Fed
Imperial Collapse Watch
Department of War Unveils “Autonomous Warfare Command” (and Other Boondoggles) Simplicius
The Eight Stages of Civilizational Collapse John Walter
Demography of Polities I Cliodynamica by Peter Turchin
Class Warfare
When All Else Is Out of Bounds, Zap Labor Dollars & Sense
The government wants you to buy tinned food to prepare for a crisis. What if you can’t afford it? Big Issue
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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