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From “Designed Viruses” To “Digital Telepathy” – AI Panic Kicks Into Overdrive

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From “Designed Viruses” To “Digital Telepathy” – AI Panic Kicks Into Overdrive

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Two days ago, I wrote an article detailing the sudden rash of “rogue AI agents” allegedly  besetting the tech community, and how that may be used to bring in new regulations, notionally targeting AI, but actually limiting or monitoring how ordinary people use the internet.

In the 48 hours since, that blatant fear-mongering has gone WILD.

Within a few hours of our original article being published, Meta joined the parade of “rogue AIs”, when Mark Zuckerberg “confirmed” one of their AI agents had left the play area and gone toddling off into the internet to do a little bit of hacking.

Then, this morning, Chinese AI company Moonshot reported their Kimi3 model had “escaped containment” [from Wired]:

THE AI INDUSTRY is having a rogue agent summer. The latest model to escape onto the open internet during security testing is Kimi K3, a powerful open-weight offering from the Chinese company Moonshot AI.

Bloomberg reports that hackers are using AI voice-cloning to steal from hedge funds. The Guardian says AI doctors are spreading medical misinformation.

The Independent is screaming:

Out-of-control AI systems are going rogue and hacking people. Is it time to panic?

And you know what? I think it just might be.

After all, rogue AIs hacking the planet are the least of it. That’s small fry already.

The New York Times is reporting that AI is now sequencing genomes and designing brand new viruses – biological viruses, not computer viruses – which will be used to treat diseases:

This A.I. Just Created Viruses Not Found in Nature – Scientists trained artificial intelligence on libraries of DNA and then asked the model to create recipes for viral genomes. Sixteen of them were viable, yielding new viruses.

But experts are warning – “warning” seems to be about 80% of what “experts” do – that this is potentially dangerous:

But experts have also warned AI-designed viruses raise “urgent” safety and security concerns.

This is painfully unsubtle propaganda, obviously hoping to play on both the Covid-inspired fear of viruses and trendy gain-of-function panic. A crossover episode, the Batman vs Superman of modern panic narratives.

In other scary AI-related news, an AI engineer with a twitter blue tick is leaving OpenAI to join Conduit, a tech start-up with the aim of creating an AI that can read people’s thoughts:

Naomi Bashkansky left OpenAI and joined Conduit to build models that turn non-invasive neural recordings into text prompts. She says a headband could decode rough intentions into AI coding prompts by 2027, with broader brain-to-AI milestones later.

I’m not sure why this is news at all, or what “non-invasive” mind-reading might look like, but since it’s probably not going to happen that doesn’t really matter.

The point is – believe EVERYTHING they tell you – and be  afraid!

That’s what Geoffrey “Godfather of AI” Hinton thinks, according to the interview published by CNN yesterday:

“What’s happening is these things are getting smarter […] I think as they get smarter, we’re going to see more and more complex intentions they have – and more and more ability to escape control […] I don’t believe we’re going to be able to keep control of them in the simple way of just outthinking them so they can’t escape […] I anticipate there will be lots of nasty cyberattacks[.]”

Like I said, be afraid.

But what’s the endgame here? The answer to that seems to be “regulation”.

Regulating AI is suddenly all anyone wants to talk about.

Many want a global treaty to govern AI risk. California and New York may already be writing it.

That’s from Foreign Policy.

The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times all have similar things to say.

Bloomberg thinks we should treat AI like the airline industry.

Politicians across the spectrum of from the UK’s AI Minister to the Governor of Vermont are clamouring for regulation.

The United Nations University tells us:

You Can’t Regulate AI Without Fully Understanding It

Oh, and in case you were in any doubt about what you were supposed to think, Donald Trump has come out for AI and against regulating it, claiming AI will be “bigger than oil”, and warning that congress wants to “regulate AI out of business”.

Trump bad.

Trump like AI.

AI must be bad.

This is the simple moral math that swaths of the US have been conditioned into.

AI is scary and needs to be regulated, and if you don’t agree you’re just like Donald Trump. That’s the headline.

But what will this “regulation” look like?

That’s a good question. One I’m not sure anyone has an all-encompassing answer to quite yet.

There’s talk of “kill switches”. The Bank of England suggested them months ago, to prevent AI stock traders crashing the market, and Rep. Ted Lieu wants congress to pass a law requiring them by the end of the year.

Two liberal professors, writing for Project Syndicate, are here to tell us “the right way” to regulate AI, using paragraphs like this:

Addressing AI’s societal risks requires institutions designed to recognize and respond to emerging threats before they become systemic failures.

…and this:

These skewed priorities can be traced to the framing of AI development as a geopolitical race. But technological leadership means little if it comes at the expense of workers’ health, social resilience, and people’s ability to lead meaningful lives. A country that develops the world’s most capable AI models while leaving its workforce deskilled and its public discourse polluted by misinformation has not won anything worth winning.

Which give vibes over specifics, but I think suggests a very familiar marketing strategy and a vague policy direction.

This vagueness is largely intentional at this point.

First they want the public to beg them to do something. They can decide what the something is later.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/09/2026 – 08:10

Europe Was Once Bigger Than The US Economy. What Happened?

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Europe Was Once Bigger Than The US Economy. What Happened?

The United States and the European Union are the two largest Western economies of the 21st century.

Over the past two decades, however, their economic trajectories have diverged significantly.

This line chart below, via Visual Capitalist’s Gabriel Cohen, tracks the gross domestic product (GDP) of the EU and U.S. economies from 2006 to 2026 using the latest figures available from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s World Economic Outlook. Figures for 2026 are forecasts.

The Early Rise and Fall of the EU

The 15-member European Union was established in 1993 from precursor organizations such as the European Communities. In 2004, 10 new member states joined, followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.

Aided by the addition of these new member states, along with strong British and German economies, the EU’s total GDP reached $19.3 trillion in 2008. This represented 131% of the U.S. economy that year, which stood at $14.8 trillion. The euro also reached an all-time high in June 2008 at roughly $1.55.

The table below shows the size of the EU economy relative to the U.S. economy from 2006 to 2026.

Year 🇪🇺 EU GDP ($T) 🇺🇸 U.S. GDP ($T) EU % of U.S. GDP
2006 15.27 13.82 110.5
2007 17.83 14.47 123.2
2008 19.27 14.77 130.5
2009 17.21 14.48 118.9
2010 17.09 15.05 113.6
2011 18.49 15.6 118.5
2012 17.40 16.25 107.1
2013 18.20 16.88 107.8
2014 18.86 17.61 107.1
2015 16.61 18.3 90.8
2016 16.70 18.8 88.8
2017 17.57 19.61 89.6
2018 19.00 20.66 92.0
2019 18.69 21.54 86.8
2020 15.49 21.38 72.5
2021 17.51 23.73 73.8
2022 17.04 26.05 65.4
2023 18.67 27.81 67.1
2024 19.50 29.3 66.6
2025 21.23 30.77 69.0
2026 23.03 32.38 71.1

The global financial crisis and Great Recession changed the European Union’s fortunes.

The newly expanded bloc faced severe challenges as several member-state governments struggled to service their debts or rein in large structural deficits. These countries included eurozone members Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, and Spain.

Through a combination of multilateral bailouts and austerity measures, the EU weathered the crisis. However, in the years that followed, the 28-member bloc’s aggregate GDP contracted, and the $18.3 trillion U.S. economy surpassed it in 2015.

Part of the decline in dollar-denominated GDP also reflected changes in exchange rates as the euro weakened against the U.S. dollar.

Brexit and the Years of Decline

Further challenges followed. In a June 2016 referendum, British voters narrowly chose to make the United Kingdom the first country to withdraw from the European Union. The Brexit process culminated in the UK’s formal withdrawal in January 2020.

Losing the UK dealt another blow to the EU’s aggregate economy. Although the country had never joined the eurozone, it was the EU’s second-largest member economy. Combined with the COVID-19 pandemic, Brexit helped push the bloc’s GDP down to $15.5 trillion in 2020, roughly where it had stood a decade earlier.

As the UK economy has struggled through much of the 2020s, some in London have begun to float the possibility of rejoining the EU. Other European countries, including Albania and Montenegro, remain potential future entrants to the bloc.

The Post-Pandemic Divergence

Since the pandemic, the U.S. and European Union have followed very different trajectories. Despite inflation and high interest rates, the U.S. economy rebounded strongly from COVID and is forecast to reach $32.4 trillion in 2026.

Meanwhile, the EU has faced a combination of rising Chinese industrial competition and an energy crisis stemming from Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. With economic heavyweight Germany facing protracted stagnation, the EU’s GDP is forecast to reach $23 trillion in 2026.

That leaves the EU economy at just 71% the size of the U.S. economy, a sharp reversal from its position in 2008. Exchange rates account for part of the shift, but weaker growth and a series of economic shocks have also contributed to the widening gap.

To explore what EU membership meant for one major economy, read Poland’s GDP per capita has more than doubled since it joined the European Union in 2004 on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/09/2026 – 07:35

Turkey Restricts Black Sea Traffic As Drone Attacks On Commercial Vessels Spike

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Turkey Restricts Black Sea Traffic As Drone Attacks On Commercial Vessels Spike

Via The Cradle

Turkey has begun restricting commercial ship traffic into the Black Sea amid a surge in Russian and Ukrainian attacks on civilian vessels, Bloomberg reported Saturday.

Turkiye’s Directorate General of Coastal Safety has informed several ships heading to Novorossiysk, an important Russian oil and grain export port, that it is not issuing transit permits at this time and requires more time to review passage applications through the Dardanelles.

via Reuters

The sources told Bloomberg that Turkish authorities had provided no explanation for the move. Some vessels have also reportedly been told that the restriction applies to ships heading to Ukraine.

The report comes after a series of drone attacks targeting Turkish commercial vessels operating in the Black Sea and near Russian ports in recent months.

On Friday, a Turkish-flagged vessel, the MV Gulluk, was struck by a drone off the Russian port of Novorossiysk. Although the drone hit the ship’s living quarters, no crew members were reported injured or killed.

On August 3rd, the Ro-Ro cargo vessel Nadezhda was struck by a drone about 20 nautical miles off Novorossiysk while en route from the Russian port to Samsun. Three members of the ship’s crew were injured and in serious condition after the attack. The same day, two civilian vessels, the Yasar and the Nadezhda, were attacked after leaving Novorossiysk.

In response, Turkiye’s Foreign Minister issued a statement saying it was “deeply concerned about the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea, which is affecting civilian shipping despite our numerous warnings.”

“Unless preventive measures are taken, the escalation in the Black Sea will have multifaceted negative repercussions, including for food security,” the statement added.

Ukraine’s targeting of ships in the Black Sea, as well as Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure and vessels, have threatened grain exports from both countries, pushing wheat prices to a two-year high in July.

“Russia is the world’s largest wheat exporter, and Ukraine is known as Europe’s breadbasket, while mutual attacks between the two countries are putting pressure on maritime transport in the region during the harvest season,” Anadolu Agency reported.

Global food prices already spiked as a result of soaring energy prices following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf earlier this year. Iran closed the strait in response to the US-Israel war of aggression, disrupting oil and natural gas exports from the Gulf countries partnering with the US and Israel in the war.

Global fuel prices have also risen in response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries. On Saturday, a Ukrainian drone targeted the Ilsky oil refinery in Russia’s ‌southern Krasnodar region, causing it to catch fire.

Ukraine’s general staff said the Ukrainian military also hit the Syzran oil ​refinery in the Samara region of Russia overnight, causing a fire there as well.

The Ilsky refinery can process over 6 ​million metric tons of oil per year, while the Syzran refinery has a ​processing capacity of 8.5 million tons ​annually.

In May, Reuters estimated that disruptions associated with the wars between the US and Iran and between Russia and Ukraine together had knocked out nearly 9 percent of global refining capacity.

Tyler Durden
Sun, 08/09/2026 – 07:00

The Trojan Horse Inside Your Head: How Government Propaganda Is Quietly Dismantling Free Thought

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The Trojan Horse Inside Your Head: How Government Propaganda Is Quietly Dismantling Free Thought

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

Ignore the bureaucrats; listen to the free thinkers…

If the Trojan War were being fought today, the Greeks would not need to hide inside of a big, wooden horse and hope to be dragged inside Troy’s city gates.  They’d simply disseminate all kinds of lies on social media and wait for the Trojan people to fight each other.  Such is the power of corrosive ideas: They can destroy a civilization before its defenders understand that they are under attack.

Information warfare is the name of the game today.  It exists all around us.  Soundbites attack us from every phone, computer, tablet, and television screen.  Succinct messages ripple through social media platforms until people from opposite sides of the world repeat the same words without knowing why.

The most powerful bits of information are the ones that sound unquestionably true.  “Believe all women.”  “Black lives matter.”  “Build back better.”  Their simplicity assists their deception.  We certainly shouldn’t distrust women, right?  Who wants to argue that black lives mean nothing?  Surely nobody wishes to build something worse than it was before.  People hear the soundbites, nod their heads, and repeat those words to their friends and neighbors.  Some place signs in their yards with those three-word messages, as if they were brilliant expositions of fundamental truths.

Successful information warfare propagates ideas without triggering in those who receive the message any need for reflection.  Like the Greeks’ wooden horse, the communication is hollow.  It is intended to be just attractive enough that listeners drag the soundbite into their heads but sufficiently harmless in appearance to avoid real scrutiny.  Great propaganda does not conquer by force.  It seduces.  It knocks on the door, smiles, and charms its way into unsuspecting minds.  Then it waits — patiently — until the day arrives when it can do the most damage.

Effective propaganda, however, is inherently fragile.  Should anyone take the time to reflect on those three-word messages above, their magic spells are broken.  Once someone asks, “Don’t some women lie?” people remember that accusations matter less than evidentiary proof.  Once a person is shouted down for saying, “All lives matter,” it becomes clear that “diversity” and “equity” have nothing to do with equality and justice.  When anyone stops to ask, “What are we building, and why are we building it?” the World Economic Forum’s plans for a “new world order” stand naked and exposed.

In other words, thinking is the enemy of information warfare.  Those who engage in its dark arts see independent thinkers as missile shields that must be eliminated.  Reason and rational debate remain the most effective defenses against propaganda.  People who ask questions build forts for society with their minds.  The entrances to those forts are adorned with this sign: Come let us reason together.

Reasoned debate is not scary; on the contrary, it is the path upon which we walk toward enlightenment.  It is why people who demand complianceshould never be trusted.  Anyone who says, “The science is settled,” or, “Trust the experts,” seeks to deprive the listener not only of his capacity to reason but also of his prospect for salvation.  When we forsake the mental gifts that God has given us, we hobble our potential for spiritual growth.  Nobody has ever been redeemed for “just following orders.”  A good life comes from good choices, and good choices come from faithful contemplation.  In this way, attacks on free speech are attacks on our very souls.

When propagandists attack our souls from all directions, it is difficult to know who is waging war against us and why.  But there are telltale signs.  When groups and governments attempt to “cancel” individuals for their personal beliefs, they are waging war against individual conscience.

Sometimes acts of war are obvious, as when a British communist allegedly bludgeoned well-known conservative Ann Widdecombe to death with a hammer.  Other times, information warfare is more subtle, as when the British government banned Christian and Finnish politician Päivi Räsänen from flying through London’s Heathrow Airport because she boldly defends the Bible’s prohibition against sexual sin, something that both Finland and the United Kingdom have now officially criminalized as “hate speech.”  Along the same lines, the Polish government recently convicted a young, pregnant mother for the “crime” of speaking at a public rally against mass immigration.  Found guilty of “inciting hatred,” Oliwia Olejniczak has received a harsher punishment for expressing her opinion than many illegal immigrants have for committing rape.

When governments abuse their criminal justice systems to persecute Christians and mothers concerned about their families’ safety, the signs are clear: Those governments are at war with their own people.  When governments “cancel” citizens for their beliefs, politicians and bureaucrats identify for us which independent thinkers they most fear.  As is written in the Gospel of Matthew (5:10), “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  When people stand up for moral truths — while bearing the brunt of their governments’ hatred — pay attention.  Those people are building forts for society with their minds.  Seek the shelter of those forts; then expand those forts to protect others.  This is the way to defeat government propaganda.

Those who engage in information warfare have a propensity for projecting their crimes onto the innocent.  This is why leftwing groups and governments accuse Christians of “hate speech,” while saying the most hateful things about Christians.  It is also why governments and NGOs insist on categorizing citizens’ dissenting speech as “disinformation” or “misinformation,” when governments and NGOs manufacture false information on an industrial scale.

There has never been a time in human history when self-appointed public censors turned out to be the “good guys.”  Communists, fascists, Nazis, and military dictators all believe in censoring public speech and rigging public debate.  The globalists, socialists, collectivists, and other Big Government parasites that have infiltrated and seized most national governments today likewise believe in censorship and the criminalization of dissent.  Information — whether true or false — does not belong to any one group of people.  Oligarchies are not filled with angels; they are filled with sinful human beings.

We saw how evil oligarchies can be during the COVID lockdowns.  Government bureaucrats and self-described “experts” told us explicitly, “Now is the time to do what you’re told.”  Western governments committed unforgivable crimes against their citizens in the name of “science.”  Australia rounded up people into “quarantine camps,” and we now know that pretend-President Joe Biden’s CDC was planning to do the same thing in the United States.

For eighty years, American schoolchildren have been taught that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII was an unconscionable violation of Americans’ constitutional rights that could never be permitted to happen again.  Yet it almost did happen again.  The U.S. government was preparing to imprison Americans who refused experimental pharmaceutical injections or expressed unapproved speech.  In January 2022, majorities of Democrats believed that “unvaccinated” Americans should be fined, locked in their homes, sent to quarantine camps, and imprisoned for questioning the effectiveness of the experimental injections.  A third of Democrats believed that the government should remove children from homes with “unvaccinated” parents.

How did we get so close to completely destroying the Bill of Rights?  Health bureaucrats and government authorities engaged in an all-out information war against the American people.  They pushed lies into American homes just as the Greeks pushed a wooden horse into Troy.  And their attack on the American people almost worked.  Americans hated each other more than ever before and nearly tore each other to shreds.  COVID was weaponized into the kind of irrational fear that destroys civilizations.

In the end, it was not the “experts” or government ministers who prevented Western civilization’s collapse.  It was the people who saw through the propaganda and refused to submit to tyranny.  The next time governments send a Trojan Horse, just light the damn thing on fire.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/08/2026 – 23:20

Diarrhea-Gate: One Sinaloa Farm, 345 Sick, And Two Restaurant Chains Down Double Digits

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Diarrhea-Gate: One Sinaloa Farm, 345 Sick, And Two Restaurant Chains Down Double Digits

The FDA has finished tracing a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Javiana back to its source – a single grower in Sinaloa, Mexico, which entered the U.S. through Coast Citrus Distributors, a California importer that supplies restaurant customers.

In this file photo, a shopper checks the firmness of a fresh jalapeño pepper at a produce stand in Jackson, Miss., on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

The agency asked Coast Citrus to recall the product. The company says has done so, and is no longer buying from the grower.

The CDC has counted 345 confirmed infections in 27 states, including 36 hospitalizations and no deaths. Illnesses began between June 19 and July 20. The real number is likely higher: most people who get salmonella recover at home and are never tested.

The epidemiology was unusually clear. Whole-genome sequencing suggested the cases were coming from the same source, and restaurant histories pointed investigators in the same direction. Of 191 people interviewed, 177 – 93 percent – said they had eaten at a Mexican-style restaurant in the month ending July 14.

The restaurant chains, for their part, moved before the investigation became a national story. Chipotle changed jalapeño suppliers at affected restaurants on July 20. The company says its traceability system allowed it to identify the grower and lot involved, remove the peppers and replace them with product from other farms.

Qdoba took a broader approach and stopped serving jalapeños across the chain on July 28. Regulators now say neither chain represents a current ongoing risk.

Investors were less patient. Chipotle shares fell nearly 10% Tuesday and have kept sliding, closing Friday down almost 12% on the week. Sweetgreen, which uses jalapeños in only two of its fifteen dressings and removed them Thursday, fell 8% Friday and is down more than 16% on the week.

Of note, Sweetgreen had already seen July sales weaken amid concern over an unrelated cyclospora outbreak tied to iceberg lettuce – an ingredient the chain does not even serve. Once customers start worrying about contaminated produce, distinctions between one ingredient, one supplier and one restaurant brand tend to disappear quickly.

Mexican health authorities have opened a separate inquiry, meanwhile. Officials visited a packing facility this week in Nuevo Leon, which is in a different state from the grower identified by U.S. investigators.

FILE – The Chipotle logo is displayed at a store, Aug. 13, 2025, in Newton, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/08/2026 – 22:45

Iran’s Mehr Releases Video Of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei For ‘First Time’ – Except It’s Old

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Iran’s Mehr Releases Video Of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei For ‘First Time’ – Except It’s Old

Update(2210ET): Iran’s state Mehr has purported to release video of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei for the ‘first time’ since the start of the war, and since he was wounded in a US-Israeli airstrike in the opening days of the attacks of over five months ago. The state-released footage is titled “First Images of the Leader” – and shows the Ayatollah addressing students, after months of speculation over his status, or whether he is even alive. He has not been seen or heard from directly since the war began, amid conflicting reports and accounts. The video has no date or location given. It appears to be in response to recent Israeli media reports alleging his deteriorating health.

However, analysts – as well as social media users in Iran – were quick to identify the footage as old material from his past lectures in Qom. This has in turn resulted in accusations of a cover-up, and that Tehran is in damage control concerning his status. For example, one hawkish US-based think tank researcher and pundit, Jason Brodsky, has commented on the released footage as follows:

This footage is old, from before the war. It was first circulating in March. It’s telling Iran’s regime’s Mehr News feels the need to circulate old video of Mojtaba.

Foreign press reports, including Russian and Chinese state channels, have been reporting the footage soon on the heels of Iranian state media circulating it…

Proof that it is actually archived footage and not in reality recent ‘proof of life’ imagery…

This is the Mehr story indicating the outlet is claiming to publish the images for the “first time” [translation]:

*  *  *

In another sign of mounting pressure on President Trump to disengage the US armed forces from his failing, five-month war on Iran, America’s top general has been carefully working with other Trump advisers to communicate that continued depletion of the Pentagon’s arsenal is unlikely to alter Iran’s stance, while escalation is likely to backfire, CNN reported on Friday evening, citing “sources familiar with the matter.” 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine has been using side conversations with cabinet officials — including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance — to ensure they have a shared, clear picture of the military situation before they meet with Trump, CNN’s sources say. Summing it up, one said, “Caine is looking for an off-ramp.”

In a July congressional hearing, Caine said “airpower has its limits.” Nicknamed “Razin Caine,” the general said to be reiterating that caution in his behind-the-scenes discussions with likeminded officials who think a major escalation of US attacks on Iran could cause disastrous fallout for the region and US interests.“There really isn’t much else to hit since it is whack-a-mole with drone and missile sites. Bombing power plants would be publicly a lot more significant,” one source said. Others said hitting Iranian infrastructure would likely rally the country’s citizens around the government — even more than the war has done already 

Last weekend, the US military seemed poised to carry out Trump’s threat to unleash “the biggest attack since World War II,” but he called it off, at least in part because of profound concerns raised by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Iran had promised to wreak havoc up and down the Gulf. “The only ones in favor of the operation were elements of CENTCOM,” said one source, referring to the Pentagon’s Central Command, which is responsible for action in the Middle East. The source also pointed out that Israel also wants escalation of the war.   

“I think it is just his way of protecting the military,” a source said about Caine’s cautionary campaign. In addition to squandering the lives of at least 18 US service members and wounding more than 600 more, the five-month Trump-Netanyahu war on Iran has severely depleted the US arsenal. Referring to Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM), two sources this week told Reuters that “Washington has used virtually all of these weapons,” further substantiating earlier media reports and think tank studies that sounded alarms over dwindling munitions. It’s not just offensive weapons that are running out: Low air defense missile supplies are also of grave concern, particularly to Gulf states that would face what would likely be a devastating Iranian backlash to a major new US assault on Iran.   

Earlier this year, one source criticized Caine for failing to pointedly counsel Trump on the pitfalls of taking on such a well-equipped and geologically-protected adversary. “He’s definitely pulling punches,” the source said then, adding that Caine was much more candid with fellow military officers than with his commander-in-chief. Now, Caine is apparently intensifying his approach. Though warning of the dwindling arsenal, Caine is said to have assured Trump that, if he does order a major escalation, the Pentagon could manage to cause plenty of destruction across Iran. However, it probably wouldn’t put a crack in Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, much less substantially affect the nuclear situation that was fraudulently advanced as the casus belli — for decades: 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/08/2026 – 22:30

The Rarest Asset In A Fourth Turning: The Freedom To Act

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The Rarest Asset In A Fourth Turning: The Freedom To Act

Authored by Chris Macintosh via InternationalMan.com,

The Fourth Turning does not end with a return to the prior equilibrium. It ends with a new order – better or worse, depending on which forces prevail in the decisive battles of the crisis era.

Those battles are being fought now, across domains: monetary (the BRICS challenge to dollar hegemony, the rise of non-dollar settlement, the emergence of digital currencies), geopolitical (the realignment of the Middle East, the unravelling of the post-Cold War security architecture), and epistemic (the collapse of institutional trust, the fragmentation of shared information environments, the re-emergence of heterodox analysis as a credible alternative to official consensus).

What distinguishes the people who navigate Fourth Turnings successfully is not superior prediction — the future is genuinely unknowable in its specifics — but superior optionality. They hold assets in multiple forms and jurisdictions. They maintain relationships across multiple networks. They retain the cognitive independence to update their models when evidence demands it. And they have not surrendered the most fundamental asset of all: the capacity to act on their own judgement.

Agency is what the propaganda apparatus is designed to extinguish. The entire architecture of manufactured consent — from the captured universities to the curated information feeds to the credit-financed comfort — is designed to produce a population that does not exercise independent judgement because it has been conditioned not to trust its own. The Covid episode was the proof of concept: even people who did not fully believe the narrative could be induced to act as though they did.

The restoration of agency is therefore not merely a personal project; it is the foundational political act of the current historical moment. And the regulatory arbitrage it enables — moving capital, business, and oneself to jurisdictions where the apparatus has not yet fully captured the population’s trust — is not tax evasion or political cynicism.

It is the restatement, in the language of economic action, of the oldest principle of political economy: that free people, in control of their own affairs, are more productive, more innovative, and ultimately more ungovernable than any administrative apparatus can tolerate.

The Argentine farmer, the Czech entrepreneur, the Singapore manufacturer, and the Dubai trader are not united by politics or culture. They are united by a single attribute: they have not forgotten how to say no.

The Turnings theory does not predict what the new order will look like. But it does predict that the people who enter the resolution phase with real assets, genuine skills, multiple jurisdictions, and uncompromised mental models will be disproportionately represented in whatever comes next.

The compliant will have managed their risk by surrendering to the system. The independent will have managed their risk by retaining the capacity to leave it.

History will record, as it always does, that the real crisis was not the one that triggered the Fourth Turning but the one that preceded it: the slow, comfortable, credit-financed surrender of agency that made populations incapable of resisting when resistance mattered most.

*  *  *

Preserving your agency starts with understanding the forces working to limit it. Our free report reveals the economic, political, and cultural shifts now unfolding, what they could mean for your wealth and personal freedom, and how a contrarian investor is positioning to stay one step ahead. Get your free report.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/08/2026 – 22:10

Trump-Backed “El Tigre” Takes Power In Colombia As Right-Wing Wave Sweeps Americas

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Trump-Backed “El Tigre” Takes Power In Colombia As Right-Wing Wave Sweeps Americas

Colombia entered a new political chapter as Trump-backed President Abelardo de la Espriella was sworn into office Friday, pledging to reverse much of former President Gustavo Petro’s nation-killing socialist agenda and to restore law and order, a free market economy, and relations with the United States.

Known by his nickname, “El Tigre” (the Tiger), De la Espriella’s inauguration marks one of the most significant political shifts in Latin America in recent years. After four years of former President Petro’s socialist experiment, which ended in economic decline, expanded coca cultivation, and increasingly strained relations with Washington, De la Espriella has already declared war on Marxist terror groups, earning a new security pledge from the US.

He was joined at the inauguration by several conservative presidents from across the Americas, including Argentina’s Javier Milei, Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, and Chile’s José Antonio Kast. Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche attended as part of the U.S. delegation.

“I have come to close a long chapter of national resignation and, together with the people, embark on the most profound transformation of our destiny,” De la Espriella said while speaking at the Pichincha Battalion military base in Cali.

He continued, “I send a firm message to the Colombian people: The time has come to restore order, authority, and freedom.”

Camilo Guzmán, executive director of Libertank, told Fox News that the new president will be focused on rebuilding strategic ties with the US, restoring close cooperation with Israel, and adopting a tougher stance toward the authoritarian governments of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.

“President de la Espriella inherits a house with the roof leaking and the safe empty. The order matters because almost everything he promised requires money he does not have,” Guzmán said, adding that Colombia’s deteriorating fiscal situation is the new administration’s most immediate headwind.

“Start with the fiscal picture. It is worse than his own team seems to expect. The 2026 deficit is tracking around 6.5-6.7% of GDP, the financing gap is close to $34 billion and the implicit medium-term adjustment being left on his desk is near five points of GDP. It is also a cash problem, not only an accounting one. Before he governs, he must make payroll,” he said. 

Shortly after de la Espriella took office on Friday, the US pledged $1 billion in security assistance, subject to congressional approval. The money will be used to “relentlessly defeat narco-terrorism” perpetrated by revolutionary Marxist groups who had already detonated car bombs ahead of yesterday’s inauguration. If we’ve learned anything from America’s far-left revolutionaries, it is that the far left uses political violence to project power.

El Tigre’s rise to power comes amid a once-in-a-generation political shift from left-wing regimes controlling the Americas to a majority of right-wing governments closely aligned with the Trump administration. The State Department has pursued this strategy to secure the West, ensure countries align with the U.S. rather than China or Russia, and promote open and free markets over failed socialist ones.

Americas Political Map: Presidential Shift From Left To Right

Country-by-country presidential shift tracker

“For the first time in 15–20 years, the overwhelming majority of the countries in the Western Hemisphere are now led by pro-American leaders and governments since @POTUS was elected president,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated last week with President Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/08/2026 – 21:35

WNBA To Hold ‘Listening Sessions’ After Second Former NBA Star Says He’s A Woman, Declares For Draft

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WNBA To Hold ‘Listening Sessions’ After Second Former NBA Star Says He’s A Woman, Declares For Draft

Update (1800ET): WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert sent a memo to teams that addresses ongoing discussions around transgender athletes in women’s basketball.

“I know many of you have received questions in recent weeks regarding transgender athlete participation in women’s basketball, and I expect this topic will continue to receive significant attention,” Engelbert wrote in the memo, which was sent Friday afternoon and obtained by The Associated Press and ESPN.

“I wanted to reach out to share how we are approaching these conversations at the league office and to thank those of you who have responded to questions from the media with thoughtfulness and professionalism.”

The memo said the topic will be discussed further by a task force of team presidents and general managers at a previously scheduled meeting next week.

The league’s collective bargaining agreement states that “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” but it does not include any more specific language about gender identity or sex assigned at birth. 

“We recognize that this is a complex and nuanced topic, and we will continue to have important conversations with all of you and the Players Association in the weeks and months ahead,” Engelbert said in the memo.

“We also plan to convene additional discussions and offer listening sessions for any team leaders who would like to participate. Your perspectives and feedback are invaluable, and I appreciate those who have already reached out to share their thoughts.”

The Women’s National Basketball Players Association released a statement on social media Friday that emphasized diversity and inclusion while saying the group “will not be used as political pawns.”

“We embrace justice equity, diversity, and inclusion,” the players’ union said.

Inclusion?

Perhaps the WNBA will finally be the first group to actually define “what is a woman?”

*  *  *

As Robert Spencer reported earlier for PJMedia.com, every person who is tired of the left forcing its delusions and fantasies on the rest of us, and shaming, deplatforming, and silencing us if we refuse to go along, ought to be applauding Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom for standing up to the madness, and showing the world just how absurd it really is.

White and Freedom have declared that they’re women, at least for the purposes of professional basketball, and so they’re declaring for the 2027 WNBA draft. This is hilarious, but it’s no joke. It’s an unanswerable response to the left’s fashionable gender delusions, which have recently become a source of controversy within the WNBA, which ought to be called the WWNBA, the Woke Women’s National Basketball Association.

It all started when WNBA star Sophie Cunningham stated that she was not in favor of men pretending to be women playing women’s sports.

This sparked the usual spittle-flecked fury from the left. The WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve, among others, came out in favor of delusional men competing against women. 

The WNBA players’ union issued a weaselly statement denouncing “Hate, abuse, and demonization of any person or group of people, including transgender people.”

Nobody had engaged in any of that, but that’s how leftists always characterize disagreement with the views they want everyone to hold.

Meanwhile, there has been talk of a WNBA team signing French basketball player Julie Tétart, who is a dude.

And so if Julie Tétart can do it, why can’t Royce White and Enes Kanter Freedom? They are just as female as Tétart is. Fox News reported Friday that White said: “I’m transgender. I’m a woman. I identify as sometimes identifying as a woman for purpose of basketball, professional basketball, so I’ll be declaring for the WNBA draft in 2027 as well,” that is, in addition to Enes Kanter Freedom.

White added a correct assessment of how well a male professional would do in the WNBA: “I think I’d be unstoppable. But I’m a team-first guy. I’m a pass-first kind of player. I do the little things. I led my team in all five major stat categories at Iowa State University, so I do a little bit of everything. I’ll do whatever the coach needs me to do. I’ll do whatever the girls need me to do… I think it’s only fair.”

White noted that the WNBA, for all its declarations of how much it rejects “hatred” of men who claim to be women, hasn’t said explicitly that men could play in the WNBA. Maybe WNBA top dogs hope that the whole thing will just go away, but it won’t.

“I think the WNBA could come out,” White said, “and make a definitive statement about guys with a pair of balls playing in the Women’s Association.”

Asked if he would declare for the WNBA draft unless the league said that men could not play in the league, White responded: “Oh, no, I’m declaring. And I don’t want to be discriminated against. I want fair treatment. I’m a young, black, hopefully United States Senator that would like a fair chance to participate as a sometimes-identifying-as-a-transgender-woman athlete.” White is on the ballot for the senate in Minnesota in the Republican primary; the election is coming up next Tuesday.

What if the WNBA calls White’s bluff and no team opts to sign him?

“I have to file a discrimination lawsuit, right?,” White said.

“I mean, that’s, that’s ridiculous. We’re gonna have to have a huge legal battle about discrimination if I can’t play.” White says he would like to play for Cheryl Reeve: “It’s got to be the Minnesota Lynx, and I hear the coach loves a good transgender, so we’ll all be in perfect harmony.”

White expressed confidence that he would be drafted:

“How you gonna pass up on a 6-foot-8, 270-pound point forward? That’s ridiculous. I’m 260 pounds, 265 pounds, 6-foot-8, can palm a basketball — can palm a men’s basketball probably as easily as any player in history. I think I had the third-biggest hands in the modern NBA Draft Combine. So, yeah, I’m sure the women’s basketball is going to fare even easier to palm, which is a huge advantage. They’re going to have nightmares, and they should. I really feel like I’m going to be dominant.”

He’s right.

If a WNBA team signs Julie Tétart or any other delusional man, the Minnesota Lynx or any other WNBA team would be foolish to pass on Royce White.

And then other teams will follow suit, until there are no women players left at all, and the WNBA is entirely filled with men and becomes a junior NBA. That will be true gender justice, won’t it, Ms. Reeve?

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/08/2026 – 21:00

‘Busted’: Female Bicyclists ‘Bulk Up’

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‘Busted’: Female Bicyclists ‘Bulk Up’

Authored by Mike McDaniel via AmericanThinker.com,

I’ve been a bicyclist all my life, but because I came to serious road racing late in life, I never had the opportunity to be competitive. Oh, I had a few good bikes and wore the required attire, but I was never going to make the medal stand.

I did ride with enough serious riders to understand their compulsions. Among them was doing whatever was necessary to shave every gram of weight possible off their trusty steeds and to make them, and themselves, more aerodynamic. Shaving the legs was mandatory, but I never participated in that ritual. The seconds that might save weren’t going to make any difference for me, nor would drilling holes in this or that component.

If you know the jargon, those were the days when shifters were mounted on downtubes, and carbon fiber was in its infancy. It consisted of round frame tubes glued into metal fittings. Ten-gear cassettes and single chainrings were the hot setup. That dates me, doesn’t it?

Much has changed since those years. Frames can now be entirely made of carbon fiber and tuned for specific kinds of races.

Everything is lighter and stronger, and computer technology has made it possible to fine-tune bike and rider to an amazing degree—particularly female riders’ breasts. Breasts?! Breasts:

Something strange is happening at the Tour de France Femmes this year.

Several women’s WorldTeams have come forward claiming that some riders are padding their bras during time trials to gain an aerodynamic edge.

The Dutch website Wielerflits broke the story after hearing from multiple teams. The complaint is that certain cyclists are using extra padding to make their chests appear larger. In the low, aggressive position of a time trial, a rounder chest can act like a “fairing,” smoothing the air and reducing drag.

Oh, come on. This has to be The Babylon Bee, right? Nope. It, and the breasts, are the real thing:

Graphic: X Post

… aerodynamics expert Bert Blocken has studied the idea. (Uh-huh. I’m sure he did). 

Hey!  You don’t want to be a science denier, do you?

His research found that a proper chest fairing can cut air resistance by as much as 3.6 percent. In a race that often comes down to seconds, that kind of gain is not nothing. Over 20 or 30 kilometers, it could easily decide a stage.

That’s exactly why riders strain to do whatever they can to get that kind of advantage. Races are often won by fractions of a second, and a 3.6% aero advantage translates to double-digit seconds over longer races. That’s a substantial win, particularly in a time trial.

Due to a law enforcement neck injury, my bike racing days are over. I can’t get on the drops (the lower portion of road bike handlebars)—it’s a pain in the neck–so I ride recumbents. You never see them in sanctioned bike races because while they’re heavier than the lightest road bikes, they also have a 10-15% aerodynamic advantage, so they’re banned.

The timing of the accusations is pretty interesting. They surfaced just as the race produced one of its most memorable moments — the longest solo breakaway victory in the history of the Tour de France Femmes on Stage 3. Officials have been quick to note there is no evidence a padded bra had anything to do with that result.

In bike racing, the tiniest technical detail and rule is usually rigorously observed. Obviously, they’re taking breasts seriously, which is always wise.

Still, the story has put the entire field on notice. Extra clothing inspections are now expected ahead of the next time trial. Bra inspections. Unbelievable.

Graphic: X Post

It should be pretty easy to spot padding.

Female riders tend to be among the leanest female athletes in the world with very low body fat percentages, which means less – ahem – prominent breasts.

I also suspect the line to volunteer for that duty will be long indeed. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it for the purity of sport and the sanctity of science.

Being male and having decades of experience with observing and judging breasts, I’m uniquely qualified. Where do I apply?

Tyler Durden
Sat, 08/08/2026 – 19:50

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