Best of the Web:


HAL9000

Best of the Web: AI data centers: The real reason they're going up everywhere


The Golden Order
Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00 UTC
data center
AI Data Centers: The Real Reason They're Going Up Everywhere Who's paying for them. Why it's happening this fast. What the buildout is for. Why you should care.

I live in Montana but I am from Pennsylvania so I follow a Facebook page called I live In Pa. I kept seeing AI data centers on this channel split-screened against the farmland and covered bridges they're replacing. Larry Fink's picture and shareholder letter, where he said the quiet part out loud about how they get paid for. So I sat down and pulled the threads.

This is what came out of it. It's longer than I usually publish. Every cut lost something the rest needed, so here it is at full length. By the time everyone agrees on what this buildout is for, the concrete will already be poured. Right now is the window — the language is still being decided, the legal challenges are still possible, and the public memory of similar buildouts is still warm.

What an AI Data Center Actually Is

"AI data center" sounds like a server room — abstract, technical, somebody else's business. The vagueness is doing work. You can't organize against something you can't picture.

Comment: See also:

Read More...
Cruise Missle

Best of the Web: Lebanon red line: Iran establishes escalation dominance with first-ever non-retaliatory strike on Israel

Simplicius the Thinker
simplicius76.substack.com
Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:48 UTC
Yesterday Iran struck Israel with ballistic missiles after Israel's bombing of a Beirut neighborhood which had been a red line for Iran.

The attack was in some ways unprecedented, as it represented Iran preemptively striking Israel for the first time without Israel having struck Iran first.

For the first time on the back foot, it was Israel and the US that were forced to "defensively" retaliate in kind:
iran war airstrikes us
Iran has shifted the entire calculus and achieved something long thought impossible. For years it was considered unthinkable that Iran would ever strike Israel directly, even after Iran was hit first. Then Iran began responding to Israeli attacks, first with 'demonstrative' strikes, then increasingly crippling ones.

Now Iran has established total strategic dominance of the escalation ladder to the point where it can treat Israel as Israel has treated other regional countries since its founding, punitively hitting it at will for violations that no longer necessarily include direct attacks on Iran's home territory.
Read More...
Gold Seal

Best of the Web: Massie takes to House floor to call for the truth about Israel's 1967 attack on the USS Liberty

blueapples on X
Ashes of Acacia
Mon, 08 Jun 2026 14:23 UTC
US Liberty damage israel attack
© US NavySevere damage sustained by the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) following an attack by Israeli forces on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War.
Massie's speech gives a voice to the servicemen whose country has forgotten them in the name of fighting for Israel instead of America.

For generations, the attack on the USS Liberty by the Israel Defense Forces ("IDF") has served as a catalyst that shifted the paradigm of how the American public views the United States' relationship with its supposed "greatest ally." For the current generation of Americans, Kentucky representative Thomas Massie has been the catalyst that has opened their eyes to the reality of the lengths that Israel will go to in order to shape the governance of the U.S. toward pursuing the Jewish state's interests instead of those of the American people. Massie's defeat against Ed Gallrein in the Republican primary for the 4th Congressional District of Kentucky, like the attack on the USS Liberty, is a distillation of how Israel has subverted the American democratic process, virtually transforming the U.S. into its vassal state. The parallels between the attack on the USS Liberty and the pro-Israel lobby's assault on Massie make it fitting that the outgoing congressman from Kentucky will be dedicating a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on June 8th, 2026 to honor the memory of the American servicemen who lost their lives aboard the USS Liberty at the hands of IDF.

Comment:

Read More...
Seismograph

Best of the Web: 32 killed and over 200 injured after 7.8-magnitude earthquake rocks southern Philippines - 3 aftershocks of mag. 6.5, 6.0 and 6.0

Jim Gomez
Independent (UK)
Mon, 08 Jun 2026 11:01 UTC
People stand near a collapsed building after a magnitude 7.8 quake in General Santos, Philippines, June 8, 2026.
© ReutersPeople stand near a collapsed building after a magnitude 7.8 quake in General Santos, Philippines, June 8, 2026.
A powerful offshore earthquake struck southern Philippines on Monday, killing at least 32 people and injuring over 200.

The magnitude 7.8 earthquake also triggered tsunami waves exceeding a metre that impacted nearby coastlines.

The city of General Santos bore the brunt of the event, experiencing building collapses and significant damage to critical infrastructure. The bustling port city is home to some 700,000 people and a hub for the tuna export industry.

Tsunami damage was reported in at least one coastal village while smaller waves were observed as far afield as Indonesia, Palau, and southern Japan.

"It's a major earthquake and we're expecting damage," Teresito Bacolcol, the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, said.


Comment: Details of the 3 aftershocks from Earthquake Track available here, here and here.

Read More...
Snowflake Cold

Best of the Web: Russia starts June cold, from Krasnodar to the Siberian Belt

Cap Allon
Electroverse.substack.com
Wed, 03 Jun 2026 10:52 UTC
Summer hasn't started for everyone: where in Russia will frosts reach -5 and sleet fall?
© Legion-MediaSummer hasn't started for everyone: where in Russia will frosts reach -5 and sleet fall?
Russia, broadly, has opened June cold.

In the south, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, on the Sea of Azov, set a new daily minimum record on June 2. The temperature fell to 10.3C (50.5F), beating the previous June 2 record of 11.1C (52F), set in 1951.

It followed a sharp late-May chill across Krasnodar Krai.

On May 31, record lows were reported in Sochi, Tuapse, Primorsko-Akhtarsk and Krasnaya Polyana. Sochi fell to 8.6C (47.5F), beating a mark from 1904. Tuapse dropped to 9.6C (49.3F), undercutting its 1956 record. Krasnaya Polyana fell to 3C (37.4F).

Russian reports blamed prolonged rain, heavy cloud and, crucially, an intrusion of Arctic air. Snow fell in the mountains. Heavy rain hit the coast. The cold carried into June and is threatening to break further records along Russia's southern edge.
Read More...
Fireball 4

Best of the Web: Power of meteor fireball explosion over the US on May 30 reached 300 tons of TNT — NASA


Tass
Sun, 31 May 2026 10:01 UTC
mmmmmm
© Shutterstock/Triff
An official at the authority says that the fireball broke up at a speed above 120,000 km per hour

The fireball causing the loud boom in the State of Massachusetts in the United States broke up at a speed above 120,000 km per hour, a NASA official told TASS.

"Current available information puts the fireball's speed at roughly 75,000 mph [120,700 km/h - TASS], and it appears to have fragmented at an altitude of 40 miles [64.3 km - TASS] above extreme northeast Massachusetts/southeast New Hampshire," the NASA official said. "The energy released at breakup is estimated to be equivalent to about 300 tons of TNT, which accounts for the loud booms," the official noted.

This fireball "was a natural object and not a re-entry of space debris or a satellite," the official added.

Read More...
Star of David

Best of the Web: The true bane of real US conservatives

Tarik Cyril Amar
RT
Fri, 29 May 2026 21:30 UTC
graphic israel american soldier handshake
© Getty
Thomas Massie's fall shows what really destroys principled US conservatism: not the left, but obedience to the Israeli lobby

As an inveterate leftie with an irrepressible intuitive sympathy for genuine, decent conservatives - that term excludes, obviously, gutless mainstream centrists - I am always looking for exemplars of this old and venerable political species. For one thing, they are much more fun to talk to than woked-out liberals, washed-out social-democrats, or hysterical warmongers of the German variety of (camouflage) Green.

Genuine, decent conservatives tend to have much to say - about, for instance, such vital things as religion, culture, and the family - that is well worth listening to, whether you agree or not. And unlike dour, doctrinaire, and frequently neurotic centrists, genuine conservatives often have the calm self-confidence that comes from being authentic, and thus they can afford tolerance and a sense of humor, even humility.

Alas, it seems that, in the West, such decent conservatives are if not on the verge of extinction, then at least seriously endangered. And, ironically, their worst enemies are not my sort of people, the often all-too-toothless left.
Read More...
Syringe

Best of the Web: Inside the FDA's 'cover-up' of child deaths linked to Covid vaccines

Maryanne Demasi
Brownstone Institute
Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00 UTC
bulletin board police
© Shutterstock
In September 2025, then-US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Dr Marty Makary publicly acknowledged that the agency was investigating reports of child deaths following Covid-19 vaccination.

"We do know at the FDA...that there had been children who have died from the COVID vaccine," Makary said during a CNN interview.

By that stage, however, a fierce internal dispute had already emerged inside the FDA over what investigators believed the evidence showed — and whether the public should ever see the full findings.

"It really did feel like there was some sort of cover-up going on about the Covid-19 vaccines," said one individual familiar with the discussions.

MD Reports spoke with several current/former agency officials, advisers, and individuals briefed on the discussions, all of whom requested anonymity because they were not authorised to publicly discuss internal FDA deliberations.

At the centre of the controversy was an internal FDA review led by Dr Tracy Beth Høeg, a physician-scientist who was working as a senior scientist inside the FDA's vaccine division at the time.

FDA officials examined roughly 96 paediatric death reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the government database used to detect potential vaccine-related adverse events.


Comment: MD Reports is a leading provider of electronic medical record (EMR), practice management (PM), and report writing software.

Read More...
Cruise Missle

Best of the Web: Russia hammers Kiev with massive barrage likely including Oreshnik hypersonic missiles

Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge
Sun, 24 May 2026 19:03 UTC
oresnik strike Kiev russia ukraine
© Times of IndiaScreen captures of Russia's massive strike on Kiev, May 24, 2026 in retaliation for the bombing of a children's school in Lugansk.
Russia answers Kiev's attack on the Starobelsk school

Less than two days after President Vladimir Putin vowed revenge for a Ukrainian strike that hit a secondary-school dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk oblast, Russia unleashed a massive, multi-weapon barrage on Kiev early Sunday, one that apparently included the rare use of Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missiles.


Comment: Putin vows revenge for Ukrainian attack on Lugansk school dorm

Read More...
Tsunami

Best of the Web: Severe flooding across central and eastern China after record rainfall of 5.5 FEET in 3 days - at least 25 killed, 20 missing (UPDATED)

Liu Boqian
China Daily
Sun, 17 May 2026 18:56 UTC
mmmmm
Heavy rains swept across central and eastern China over the weekend, hitting provinces including Jiangxi and Hunan, with more downpours expected.

The National Meteorological Center (NMC) forecasts that over the next three days, heavy rainfall will gradually move eastward and southward.

Since Friday evening, torrential rain in Ganzhou city, Jiangxi, has raised river levels and caused localized flooding. Shangyou county was hardest hit, especially Dongshan township, where rising waters disrupted electricity and water supplies, submerged streets and swept away vehicles.

By 4:30 pm Saturday, the county government had relocated 1,147 residents across a number of townships. No casualties or missing persons were reported, according to local media.


Comment: Update May 19

The Independent reports:
At least 12 people were killed as torrential rains continued across southern and central China on Tuesday, with widespread flooding that also closed schools and businesses, and disrupted transport and power supplies, authorities said.

China's weather agency maintained elevated orange alerts on Tuesday for heavy rain and severe stormy weather, warning that the huge precipitation system has entered its strongest, most destructive stage.

The China Meteorological Administration (CMA) said areas of Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdong and Hainan faced a high risk of rain-related disasters, including landslides, flash floods and severe urban flooding and waterlogging. Authorities said they ⁠were launching emergency responses in several affected areas.

Many residents in Jingzhou, a city in central Hubei, were knee-deep in water and able to catch fish swimming in the streets, according to images posted on Chinese video platform Douyin.

Some cars were nearly completely submerged on roads surrounded by residential and commercial buildings.

Torrential rainfall hit the upper reaches of the Baishui River, part of Xuan'en county, with precipitation reaching 292.6mm. The rainstorm caused river water levels to surge rapidly, inundating multiple homes along the Baishui River. Some houses collapsed, while roads and communication services were disrupted.



At least eight people were confirmed dead after a pickup truck carrying 15 farm workers fell into a flooded river in China's southwestern region of Guangxi amid heavy rain, state broadcaster CCTV reported. In ‌separate incidents, three people were killed by flash floods ‌in a low-lying village in Hubei, while another person was killed in southern Hunan province, CCTV said.

Torrential rains also battered Shimen county in Hunan province from 7am Sunday, leaving one person dead and two others missing as of Monday evening, according to Xinhua.
Update May 20

Gulf Today reports:
Death toll reaches 25 in China rain, 20 more missing

The death toll from heavy rains across central and southern China since the weekend has risen to 25, state media reports showed Wednesday, with 20 more people still unaccounted for.

Natural disasters and extreme weather events are common in China, particularly in the summer, when some regions experience intense rainfall while others bake in searing heat.

Several areas across China have been hit by "record-breaking rainfall" in recent days, state-run broadcaster CGTN said, triggering school and work suspensions as well as allocation of relief funds.




Read More...