Women beekeepers ‘astonished’ by global response to world record attempt ABC Australia
Scientists Gave Penguins a Mirror, And We Have Lots of Questions Science Alert
The Who-Ate-Whom of Terms in Biology: Virovory Small Things Considered. Fascinating. Keep reading
Why Was King Tut Buried with a Trumpet? The Honest Broker
MLK
Martin Luther King Jr. Was More Radical Than We Remember Teen Vogue. From 2020, still germane.
A Collection of Rare Color Photographs Depicts MLK Leading the Chicago Freedom Movement Smithsonian
Davos
How the Davos elite took back control Unherd. In the usual ways:
At Davos, Blackrock VP Phillipp Hildebrand is advocating central banks “engineer a recession to get inflation under control.”
I could not possibly disagree more… https://t.co/7LQGFRdvip
— Barry Ritholtz (@ritholtz) January 16, 2023
Manchin, Sinema and Coons meet with CEOs at private Davos luncheon for World Economic Forum CNBC
Belarus opposition leader warns of ‘massive disobedience’ if Lukashenko mobilises for Ukraine war FT. A-a-a-a-a-n-d the deck: “Dictator is more vulnerable than he looks, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya tells FT in Davos.” The subtext here is not hard to read.
Climate
Activists criticise insurance industry’s first attempt to measure carbon emissions FT
Water
Skipped Showers, Paper Plates: An Arizona Suburb’s Water Is Cut Off NYT
#COVID19
SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection is Preceded by Unique Biomarkers and Related to Initial Infection Timing and Severity: an N3C RECOVER EHR-Based Cohort Study (preprint) medRxiv. From the Discussion: “However, it is notable that in Figure 1, initial infection during Delta appeared to be more protective against reinfection during Omicron than initial infection during WT COVID or Alpha, Beta, Gamma. This difference disappeared during Omicron BA.” And: “This study contributes novel findings of the relationship of reinfection with Long COVID diagnosis. The largest proportion of Long COVID diagnoses occur among individuals with a first reinfection in the Omicron BA epoch. Long COVID diagnoses also occurred much closer to the index date following both initial or first reinfection in the Omicron BA epoch as compared to earlier Delta and Omicron epochs. The rate of Long COVID diagnoses has been increasing for reinfections in more recent variants.”
Data Snapshot: Are we overcounting Covid-19 deaths? No. Inside Medicine
China’s COVID Death Data Underestimates Actual Toll; Might be Just the Tip of the Iceberg: Report Bloomberg
Airplane lavatories deliver new hope for the CDC’s variant hunt Politico. I’m imagining the next William Gibson trilogy, where one of the protagonists is paid to travel the world er, gaming wastewater detection systems with engineered viral loads.
Several celebrities test positive for COVID after Golden Globes ABC. They just can’t quit the superspreading.
The Chinese View of the World: Is a Non-Zero-Sum Game Possible? Valdai Discussion Club
China?
Commentary: China might not get the economic boost it expects in 2023 from ending zero-COVID Channel News Asia
Construction Resumed on One-Fifth of Stalled Housing Projects by Year End, Survey Finds Caixin. Driving local budgets? Driving the end of Zero Covid? China hands? Commentary:
61/3
We will continue to see many stories like this: “Chinese authorities have opened an investigation into New China Life for its investments in the real estate sector, one of which Wan led himself, several industry insiders said.”https://t.co/VfckUiiVW8— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) January 17, 2023
Chinese chip giant weighs IPOs, land sales to slash debt burden Straits Times
China population: 2022 marks first decline in 60 years South China Morning Post
Chinese-owned nickel smelter operational after a Chinese and an Indonesian worker died during riot South China Morning Post
Environmentalists lambast Indonesia-Malaysia palm oil pledge over deforestation concerns The Straits Times
“Red Card” for the President? Vietnam’s Biggest Political Drama in Decades Fulcrum
Record fish release aims to aid Cambodia’s biodiversity Globe_. That this should be necessary is already a tragedy.
The Koreas
South Korea president, in UAE, backs return to nuclear power Stars and Stripes
The Lucky Country
Should somebody check in on Australia?
Alan Tudge, Christian Porter and Rachelle Miller to front robo-debt inquiry Brisbane Times. More on Robodebt:
#RoboDebtRC More shocking revelations, that they even took the Centrelink PH number off the initial letter, in doing so putting more obstacles for recipients, particularly those vulnerable [7/8] pic.twitter.com/AxxP81zmJZ
— stranger (@strangerous10) January 17, 2023
Awesome. They’re making us look like amateurs.
Australian governments have kept much of their COVID research and modelling secret. Why? ABC Australia
Friends with Benefits London Review of Books. The Five Eyes.
New Not-So-Cold War
The Dangers of False Metrics and Nuclear Annihilation Empire, Communication and NATO Wars. Mercouris yesterday.
Russia produces first batch of nuclear-armed Poseidon torpedo drones ‘capable of wiping out entire coastlines with radioactive tsunamis’ – as Putin cronies call for Britain to be ‘demolished from the face of the earth‘ Daily Mail
No Russian and no Russians: Ukraine invasion has supercharged Latvian nationalism Vancouver Sun
South of the Border
After the rampage: Brazil’s new leaders to fight hard in wake of ‘insane’ coup attempt Guardian
Biden Administration
POLITICO Playbook: A tale of two Biden speeches Politico
2024
House GOP demands visitor logs in Biden classified docs case AP
Biden uses his lawyers to find his classified docs — to shield from the FBI NY Post. Standard Operating Procedure for Democrats
Our Famously Free Press
Covid-19 Drugmakers Pressured Twitter to Censor Activists Pushing For Generic Vaccine The Intercept
Wikipedia needs different safety rules, says foundation BBC. Wow, it sure would be terrible if a lot of small sites were put out of business by onerous reporting requirements (“But the children!”) that ginormous monopolies could easily fund.
Explaining online conspiracy theory radicalization: A second-order affordance for identity-driven escalation (abstract only) Information Systems Journal. Hilariously, doesn’t mention RussiaGate (“But– But–“).
Recalling CNN’s Fraudulent “Interview” With A Seven Year-Old Syrian Girl Caitlin Johnstone
Supply Chain
Asian Markets Are Dominating Russian Crude Trades Hellenic Shipping News
Guillotine Watch
The Rich’s Search for the Key to Immortality Is Harmful to the Rest of Us Jacobin. Commentary:
This is a rare case where I agree with Jacobin.
Increasing quality of life for the aged is important, but increased lifespan, especially if cognitive impairment is not addressed, is not good for civilization.
We are already ruled by a gerontocracy!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 17, 2023
The modern family size is changing. Four charts show how. NBC
Class Warfare
Corporations Are Pushing The Supreme Court To Crush Unions Unherd
The Getty Family’s Trust Issues The New Yorker
OSHA: American Airlines punished flight crew for reporting toxic fumes HR Dive
See, this is why we need to privatize Social Security (ctilee):
How to Swim Against the Stream: On Diogenes Los Angeles Review of Books (AL).
The Psychology of Veridos: A Study of Moral Heroism of the 5% or Less Internationalist 360°
The Things You Own…Can’t Own You Daily Stoic
Antidote du jour (via TS):
TS writes: “A Kadee replay, she’s giving her best impression of a beaver.”
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
