Plant Fungus Has Been Caught in an Evolutionary Leap Science Alert. Opposable thumbs?

The Eyepopping Factory Construction Boom in the US Wolf Street

Vibes vs. data Noah Smith, Noahpinion

Climate

Greenhouse gas emissions soar – with China, US and India most at fault Guardian

COP28: US touts climate leadership as oil and gas output hits record Reuters

COP28: 22 nations pledge to triple nuclear generation capacity by 2050 S&P Global

US joins in other nations in swearing off coal power to clean the climate AP. The US is joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance. Neither China nor India are members. Handy chart:

One does wonder if China needs the coal to manufacture and charge all those EVs….

The problem with EVs is they’re made in China Felix Salmon, Axios

US moves to choke China’s role in electric vehicle supply chain FT

Heavy snow brings chaos to southern Germany as Munich suspends flights Guardian. Video:

Five grassroots climate justice movements COP28 could learn from Al Jazeera

Russian billionaire touts woolly mammoths as climate fix Bloomberg (Furzy Mouse).

Ancient redwoods recover from fire by sprouting 1000-year-old buds Science

China?

China’s Economic Heft Sinks for First Time in Three Decades Bloomberg

Chinese borrowers default in record numbers as economic crisis deepens FT

China’s economy is suffering from long covid The Economy. But not the West’s, totally.

National security studies are going mainstream in China. Will it breed a new Chinese elite? SCMP. First, China follows the West’s lead in whacking a few million people with Covid. Now, they’re creating The Blob With Chinese Characteristics. None of this will end well.

Pentagon: US arms industry struggling to keep up with China Politico

The Most Dangerous Conflict No One Is Talking About The Atlantic

Indonesia’s ambitions to be a hub to store carbon emissions could be risky business Channel News Asia

Syraqistan

Civilians are ‘center of gravity’ in Gaza war: US defense secretary Reuters. Indeed!

Israeli offensive shifts to crowded southern Gaza, driving up death toll despite evacuation orders AP. “Despite” is doing a lot of work, there.

Basic Principles of Humanity New York Review of Books

Israel’s Netanyahu vows to continue war with Hamas ‘until all aims achieved’ France24

Zim container ships divert as threat to Israel-linked vessels mounts Freight Waves

Israel is turning into Lebanon Unherd

How Saudis overcame “reputational damage” Indian Punchline

Seems a propos:

[embedded content]

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia maintains hope to fully occupy Ukraine – General Staff report Ukrainska Pravda

Ukraine conducts new attack on Russian railway deep in Siberia Euractiv

Ukraine’s security service alleges Russian plot involving ex-president Reuters

Is Hersh story on secret Ukraine peace talks true? Asia Times

Rheinmetall plans to start producing its armoured vehicles in Ukraine in 2024 Ukrainska Pravda

South of the Border

Police charge director of Miss Nicaragua pageant with running ‘beauty queen coup’ plot CBS

Biden Administration

White House creates cabinet-level supply chain council Supply Chain Dive. “The council will be co-chaired by the National Security Advisor and National Economic Advisor.” And not Pete Buttigieg. How odd.

2024

Trump says 14th amendment cases, media made him ‘much more popular’ than ever before The Hill. And he’s not wrong, is he?

Trump calls out immigration crisis during Iowa caucus rally, says he will keep world peaceful, safe FOX

Speaker Mike Johnson says he thinks he has the votes to authorize Biden impeachment inquiry NBC

‘Escape liberal hell’: Republicans really are fleeing WA Seattle Times

Our Famously Free Press

Not a Nothingburger: My Statement to Congress on Censorship Matt Taibbi, Racket News

Digital Watch

The Inside Story of Microsoft’s Partnership with OpenAI The New Yorker

Why the Entire AI World Was Talking About ‘Q’ This Week Gizmodo

The end of business-class A.I. doomerism Read Max

Law secretly drafted by ChatGPT makes it onto the books The Register

Facebook Announces Human Trafficking Now Allowed On Marketplace The Onion

Supply Chain

Cash, Cars, Chemicals (and Corn) Phenomenal World

Sports Desk

Understanding the African sports economy Africa Is a Country

The rise of cricket podcasts: a perfect medium for a sprawling game Guardian

Class Warfare

Waffle House Has The Worst Employee Food Policy Mashed

Drunk and Asleep on the Job: Air Traffic Controllers Pushed to the Brink NYT. What’s wrong with the labor market? ‘Tis a mystery!

The national riders’ strike in France is bad news for Uber Eats and for Emmanuel Macron: Interview with CGT’s Ludo Rioux Brave New Europe

The US needs to improve the quality of infrastructure jobs, not just create more of them Brookings Institution

Yale Awards 80 Percent of Grades in the A Range Jonathan Turley. New York Spy magazine once had a movie critic (not, I think, Walter Monheit) who only awarded movies four and five stars. I guess they were a Yalie…

Himmelsbriefe: Heaven-Sent Chain Letters JSTOR Daily. Going viral in print.

Fossil Preparation: View From The Cheap Seats Fossils and Other Living Things.

Notes on Complexity: A Buddhist Scientist on the Murmuration of Being The Marginalian

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on by Lambert Strether.

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.