Tiny Hippos And Elephants Once Roamed Cyprus, Until Humans Arrived ScienceAlert (Chuck L)
Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ Is Surprisingly Scientifically Accurate, Mirroring Complex Atmospheric Physics ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)
Earth will get another moon this month — but not for long! Space (Micael T)
Breakthrough study predicts catastrophic river shifts that threaten millions worldwide ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
What Happened to Easter Island? New Research Refutes Best-Selling Population Collapse Theory SciTech Daily (Chuck L). This story has been covered elsewhere, in case you missed it.
The Anti–Rock Star Atlantic. Anthony L: “Leonard Cohen”
#COVID-19
CAUGHT: NYC Covid Czar Admits Forcing Vaccines & Having Drug-Fueled Sex Parties YouTube (IM Doc)
Researchers build shortlist of animals that could have started COVID-19 pandemic 9News (Kevin W)
Climate/Environment
>EPA Scientists Said They Were Pressured to Downplay Harms From Chemicals. A Watchdog Found They Were Retaliated Against. ProPublica (Kevin W)
Avoiding microplastics has become a luxury good. Atlantic (Dr. Kevin)
End of an era’: UK to bid adieu to its last coal power plant Daily SabahGermany Needs New Natural Gas Capacity to Meet Its Coal Phase-Out Target OilPrice
Drought and wildfires threaten energy supply in Amazon’s largest city The Brazilian
China?
China’s growing military activity makes a shift to war harder to spot, warns Taiwan Financial Times
US keeps missile system in Philippines as China tensions rise Reuters
The Great China Car Blitzkrieg Michael Dunne (guurst)
China dairy farms swim in milk as fewer babies, slow economy cut demand Reuters
ASPI’s two-decade Critical Technology Tracker ASPI. Discussed further: China leads world in 57 of 64 critical technologies; up from 3 just 20 years ago Hacker News (Paul R)
Fukushima water under the bridge between China, Japan Pekingology
Show of force’: are North Korea’s missile tests a sign it has given up on diplomacy with US? South China Morning Post
The Antipodes
New Zealand’s economy contracted in the second quarter Business Times
European Disunion
German economy could shrink again in Q3, Bundesbank warns Reuters
“Help! My child is becoming right wing!”: Leading Berlin newspaper provides “tips for democratic parents” who are forced to deal with “undemocratic children”Germany has the stupidest political discourse on earth. Eugyppius
France’s record deficit could break taboo on tax hikes Le Monde
Old Blighty
UK Deficit Overshoots in Blow to Reeves as Debt Hits 100% of GDP Bloomberg
Farage says Reform can win election as conference leans into hard-right tropes Guardian (Kevin W)
Gaza
Strange how the Chinese Media seem to have no problems understanding what seems indecipherable by British, US, and EU Client Media. @SCMPNews pic.twitter.com/rufoBDg8wC
— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) September 19, 2024
Attack on communication devices in Lebanon violates international law, could be war crime: UN human rights chief Arab News
Israel kills top Hezbollah commander in Beirut attack Mondoweiss
An Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon could trigger doomsday scenes and all out war, a senior diplomat has said Daily Mail
Israel vs. Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran — and Itself New York Times (Dr. Kevin)
First Israel’s Exploding Pagers Maimed and Killed. Now Comes the Paranoia and Your Phone Won’t Be the Next Exploding Pager Wired (Dr. Kevin). I doubt that this will be dispositive. But most buyers are ruled by inertia, and instead will take the view that they are highly unlikely to be targeted. And the reality is that the most risky thing that people do on a routine basis, which is use cars (or here motorbikes) is far more hazardous than the exploding electronic device potential.
New Not-So-Cold War
SITREP 9/20/24: Ukraine Allies Squeezed by Weapons Drought as Clock Ticks Simplicius
Ukraine – Recent Front Line Reports Point To Systemic Failures Moon of Alabama (Moon of Alabama)
EU support falls short as Ukraine faces looming winter energy crisis EUObserver
Let Ukraine strike into the heart of Russia, MEPs urge EU countries Politico
Putin ally warns West of nuclear war over Ukraine Reuters
Russia-Ukraine war: US imposes new sanctions on Russia and North Korea – as it happened Guardian
Russia-EU Trade Grows for First Time Since November 2023 Sputnik. As in it had periods of earlier growth since the war started (Robin K)
West still relies on Russian nuclear power sector, shielding Moscow from further sanctions, report warns Sky News
Ukrainian special forces bomb Russian base in Syria: Report The Cradle (Kevin W)
Hidden network in Sweden manufactures materiel for Ukraine’s defense Aftonbladet via machine translation (Micael T)
Immigration
Sudan refugees in Egypt caught between conflict and crackdown Middle East Monitor
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
On the emerging digital panopticon NeoFeudal Review (Micael T)
Imperial Collapse Watch
The Decline of the U.S. Empire: What Will Happen Next? ZMEScience (Dr. Kevin)
The Rise & Fall Of Higher Education & The Medieval Universities Crisis Ian Welsh (Micael T)
The ‘Genocide Gentry’ Consortium News (Robin K)
Biden
Biden touts economic gains, acknowledges a long way to go Politico (Kevin W). First “Biden” header in some time.
Trump.
This is na ga happen. There was a mini-crisis that was not well covered in connection with the Global Financial Crisis. Banks has sold off portfolios of credit card receivables. These were supposed to be transfers even though banks were still servicing the cards. When defaults mounted in the crisis, the buyers said, “You need to eat the losses or we will never buy this stuff again.” There was no way banks had the balance sheet capacity, much the less in a crisis, to retain new credit card receivables.
However, if Trump finds a way to implement a variant of this idea (a cap at a higher level for new credit card loans), it would force the industry to go back to something like its model as of the 1980s: being much much much more stringent about extending credit, and imposing annual fees (which they all had as of then, the purpose was to assure they made some money on the consumer side from customers who paid off balances in full every month).
BREAKING: Trump announces that as president, he will immediately implement a temporary 10% cap on credit card interest rates
“We can’t let them make it 25% and 30%.”
Credit card interest rates are at a historic high under the Kamala-Biden regime. His simple plan will alleviate… pic.twitter.com/yENoVsqv1S
— George (@BehizyTweets) September 19, 2024
2024
Dems Have “No Hope” of Winning Election Warns Green Party VP Candidate Butch Ware Glenn Greenwald. Muslim voters set to throw a major spanner. A large majority will not vote for either party.
In an Unprecedented Move, Ohio Is Funding the Construction of Private Religious Schools ProPublica (Kevin W)
Our No Longer Free Press
Taibbi & Kaminsky: Why are we targets of the State Department? Unherd, YouTube. A useful overview if you have not kept on top of this particular story.
Mr. Market Got Its Way
The Fed says its long-awaited rate cut is apolitical, even close to the presidential election Iowa Capital Dispatch (Robin K)
Antitrust
High insulin prices spur a federal lawsuit against three pharmacy benefit managers Associated Press (Kevin W)
Qualcomm wants to buy Intel The Verge (Paul R). Don’t try to catch a falling safe.
Class Warfare
Largest port on U.S. East Coast, New York/New Jersey, begins prepping for what could be first union strike since 1977 CNBC (Kevin W)
Antidote du jour (mrsyk):
This is The Dude (she/her, long story but distills to a version of her pulling a Lola on us. Her stage name is Lady Stardust, described as “a feather duster with teeth. Littermate to previously featured Jean Claude, so I beg your indulgence.
All the best from the southern Greens of Vermont,
A bonus (Chuck L):
When a baby sperm whale decides that you’re now best friends and wants to play. pic.twitter.com/v6VMqXba1t
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) September 18, 2024
A second bonus (guurst):
Любопытный нос pic.twitter.com/4h0dJAn8Nh
— Etna (@Etnaetoya) September 19, 2024
A third bonus (Chuck L):
Horse helping people in hospital pic.twitter.com/sDCnS6hNwp
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) September 20, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
