OVERVIEW
What were once certainties are now being questioned by the American Empire. This is very difficult with very old national politicians. With the Modern World in its dotage, it is unclear how long the boomer generation can retain power.
Will they destroy the planet before the planet destroys them and everyone else? Will the demented fall down and not be able to get up? Everyone is looking at Donald Trump and waiting for his scheme to get out of the first debate with Biden.
The media, as always, is owned by people who also own Trump and Biden, for what that is worth. There is a lot of editing with any news of Trump’s rallies to splice together the parts that seem to make some sense. There is no editing in a debate.
Biden is forgetful. We are close to the same age, so I know how often I forget a word I want to use, but it comes back. That is very different from going completely off the rails, which we have all seen Trump do with no idea of where he is going.
I’m afraid that if Trump is put on a stage with Biden, it will be tragic. His handlers cannot afford that, but they may not be able to control him. However, Trump’s cowardice usually takes control, allowing him to fabricate a memory of an epic win.
That will only work for his cult followers, who are now thinning out. Despite all the talk of show trials, a felony conviction on all counts in the first of several trials casts things in a harsh and chilling light.
At the same time, Biden’s decades as a bought and paid-for Zionist turned into a horrible mistake since October 7. The usual anti-Palestinian narrative has worn out after seventy years, particularly with the fascist brutality of Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza.
Genocide is a hard thing to ignore on a planet with instantaneous communication. Most of the planet is not part of the American Empire and is very tired of being used.
While Trump seems to have hit reality as a felon, Biden is now in the cartoon condition of shouting “Charge!” against the Palestinians (and everyone else not in the Empire) and discovering he has only a few old guys behind him.
It is time to abandon the old goals and seriously rethink our direction, as the climate disaster eliminates our options.
MIDDLE EAST WAR (GAZA)
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‘Historic, But So, So Late’: Israel Added to UN’s Child-Killing ‘List of Shame’
"It took a genocide that killed 15,000 children and maimed and scarred thousands more, but the U.N. has finally and rightly added Israel to its List of Shame," said one Palestinian observer.
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At least 210 Palestinians were killed and 400 others were injured in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday after Israeli forces carried out a "rescue operation" to retrieve four captives. Reports of U.S. involvement in the operation have sparked backlash. . .
Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif reported that Israeli forces “infiltrated” the Nuseirat refugee camp in trucks disguised as humanitarian aid trucks.
The Gaza government media office said in a statement that Israeli forces launched an “unprecedented brutal attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp” directly targeting civilians, and that ambulances and civil defense crews were unable to reach the area and evacuate the wounded due to the intensity of the bombing.
The media office added that according to its count, at least 210 Palestinians were killed and an estimated 400 others were injured during the Israeli operation.Video footage published on social media showed dozens of bodies of men, women and children lying in the streets in the Nuseirat area, as well as bloodied and injured civilians being rushed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah.
The Genocide in Israeli Prisons
Families of Palestinian prisoners are kept in the dark about the fate of their loved ones at a time when Israeli prison authorities are creating conditions unfit for human life.
CLIMATE DISASTER
New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States
According to new data from the Rhodium Group analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures and changing rainfall will drive agriculture and temperate climates northward, while sea level rise will consume coastlines and dangerous levels of humidity will swamp the Mississippi River valley.
Heat Wave Season in Major Metros Triples Between 1960s and 2020s
Summer’s approaching, and many Americans look forward to warmer weather. However, as temperatures continue to rise across the globe, Americans are feeling the heat more than ever.
In fact, heat wave season has more than tripled between the 1960s and 2020s — and heat-related deaths have jumped 857.5% between 1986 and 2022.
In addition to detailing our findings, we’ll cover expert tips on health insurance and reducing exposure to extreme heat — and when to seek help.
![A 7-year-old plays on his familly’s dock on the island of Gardi Sugdub. A 7-year-old plays on his familly’s dock on the island of Gardi Sugdub.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fb4b5efe9-860f-4779-88ac-58f37382edcb_1280x720.jpeg)
As seas rise, the relocation of Caribbean islanders has begun [Source: Economist (PayWall)
The government-managed movement of 300 families from the island of Gardi Sugdub is a test case for “planned retreat” in Latin America.
She is, or was, a resident of Gardi Sugdub, a tiny coral island about a kilometre off the northern coast of Panama. On June 3rd the Panamanian government began moving 300 families from the island to new government-built housing on the mainland. A changing climate and rising seas are slowly swamping the island, and 37 other inhabited islands nearby, most of which lie less than one metre above sea level. That level is rising 3.4 millimetres every year. Storms are becoming heavier and more frequent. Steve Paton of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama City says the islands will be uninhabitable by the end of the century.
America's solar energy industry is on a tear
The industry hit new records as 75% of all new electricity-generating capacity came from solar in the first quarter of the year.
Utility-scale solar saw record growth and deployment. Florida, Texas, and California led the way in new added capacity during the quarter. Other states, including Nevada and New Mexico, also showed significant growth.
Despite its growth, “the solar industry faces a number of challenges to its continued growth including availability of labor, high voltage equipment constraints, and continued trade policy uncertainty,” said Michelle Davis, the lead author of the report.
The residential solar segment recorded its worst quarter in two years, driven down by policy changes in California. The California Public Utilities Commission’s new net metering policy decreased compensation for excess energy by some 75%, leading to a drop in installations.
SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY
![Apple’s flagship store for Smart Products in Shanghai, China. Apple’s flagship store for Smart Products in Shanghai, China.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F08040955-0314-4827-8639-54ef97cd8e2f_645x364.jpeg)
Apple's 'IntelliPhones' will dominate the market, Bank of America says
Apple has been quiet on AI but is expected to debut AI tools in its next big mobile software update, iOS 18, during its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in mid-June. The release marks a step towards what Mohan calls an “IntelliPhone” — devices that offer everything from virtual and augmented reality experiences to AI-generated personal assistance.
“While we do not expect all these features at WWDC, we do expect a pathway for the IntelliPhones to become mainstream especially as conversational AI gets more integrated into daily use along with the backend of AI agents,” said Mohan.
Human-Like ‘Bio-Skin’ Gives Robots a Much More Nuanced Sense of Touch
![Scientists develop 3D artificial skin to give robots a better sense of touch. Scientists develop 3D artificial skin to give robots a better sense of touch.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbeb5edd7-3f5e-4a63-9aa7-ed20365ea1ef_696x392.jpeg)
Now, a team from China and Singapore has recapitulated these qualities in artificial skin. Mimicking the division of labor, the three-dimensional electronic skin, dubbed 3DAE-Skin, adopts a skin-like multilayer construction.
Using microfabrication techniques, the team engineered a flexible device—roughly the size of the tip of a human thumb—that can sense different types of forces at a resolution similar to its human counterpart.
Combined with electrical circuits that acquire data and process it with a custom deep learning algorithm, the skin could tease apart tiny differences in touch. In one study, like a blindfolded but seasoned grocery shopper, it gauged the ripeness of multiple fruits with a squeeze or two and decided whether a croissant or cake was overly stale with a poke.more-nuanced-sense-of-touch/
Super-fast Microsoft AI is first to predict air pollution for the whole world
An artificial-intelligence (AI) model developed by Microsoft can accurately forecast weather and air pollution for the whole world — and it does it in less than a minute.
The model, called Aurora, is one of a slew of AI weather forecasters being developed by tech giants, including Google DeepMind’s GraphCast and Nvidia’s FourCastNet. But Aurora’s ability to quickly predict air pollution globally is pioneering, say researchers.
DeepMind AI accurately forecasts weather — on a desktop computer
“This, for me, is the first big step in a journey of atmospheric chemistry and machine learning,” says machine-learning researcher Matthew Chantry at the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in Reading, UK.
Until next week . . .
Mike Meyer