Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Simon Tisdall discusses the fallout from the Trump regime's choice to launch a war in Iran - with its culture of denial doing nothing to mitigate the harm. And Anthony Fisher writes about the invariable stupidity and malignancy of the people chosen to surround Trump (for the sole purpose of insulating him from inconvenient realities). 

- Meanwhile, Kyla Scanlon highlights how Zohran Mamdani's inspiring victory in the New York mayoral primary offers an example of how progressive values can win out in the current information environment. And both Hamilton Nolan and Lex McMenamin are optimistic that Mamdani's campaign can be the start of a movement to replace a captured Democratic establishment with a new organization structure that is both answerable and appealing to the general public. 

- Tiffany Hsu discusses how countries around the world are stepping into the gap left by the U.S.' abandonment of international cooperation. But Doug Saunders' analysis of Mark Carney's strategy serves mostly to confirm that the Libs are wasting an immense amount of capacity (and pursuing counterproductive policies) trying to placate Trump rather than looking forward. 

- Cindy Cho points out the case for treating dirty energy purveyors as responsible for unnatural heat waves. And Kendra Jewell, Rowan Burdge and Liv Yoon offer a reminder that the people who suffer most in extreme heat are those already living in poverty or otherwise vulnerable. 

- Ian Urquhart discusses how Alberta is continuing to lie about its contribution to the climate breakdown while consistently increasing its carbon pollution. And Adrienne Tanner rightly questions how the oil industry and its fully-owned government subsidiaries consider themselves entitled to have the public fund the immense cost of carbon capture schemes. 

- Finally, Paris Marx discusses the dangers of allowing the U.S. to dictate both which technology will be used, and which countries have access to it. And Matthew Hughes writes about the tech industry's assumption over complete control of basic infrastructure with no regard for people's needs.