Albatrosses listen to the sea to navigate the sky Boing Boing

Asteroid Polyhymnia’s density beyond known elements The Watchers

Climate

Encountering Trees Emergence

Earth Stopped Getting Greener 20 Years Ago Scientific American

Addressing the climate crisis: How to save Florida from an insurance catastrophe Orlando Sentinel

Common Sense Solutions for Collapse Z

China?

China’s belt and road pivots to ‘small yet smart’ projects with ‘modest’ US$107 billion financing pledge South China Morning Post

China’s parcel volume surpassed 100 bln threshold earlier this year Xinhua

How US curbs on China may revive its rust belt – the former industrial powerhouse near Russia South China Morning Post

Asia is a ‘bright spot’ for economic growth amid geopolitical tensions, says Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser Channel News Asia

India

Indian cops and spies as (unwitting) stand-up comedians Countercurrents

Syraqistan

US Faces New ‘Axis of Evil’ in Iran, China and Russia: Mitch McConnell Newsweek. George W. Bush’s 2002 “axis of evil” was Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. We then went to war with Iraq, and lost. Iran is still standing. North Korea still has nukes. Those three were regional powers. Now McConnell — It’s bipartisan! — doubles down by proposing to assault two great powers, both nuclear, when we can’t even make our own ammunition, or recruit enough troops.

Second aid convoy reaches Gaza as Israel attacks targets in Syria and occupied West Bank AP

Israel Latest: West Steps Up Efforts to Prevent Wider Conflict Bloomberg

Blinken, Austin say US is ready to respond if US personnel become targets of Israel-Hamas war AP. The picture does not inspire confidence. Blinken has a “deer-caught-in-the-headlights” look, and Biden has clearly performed empathy at least one too many times.

Blinken dodges question on whether US has asked Israel to delay ground operation The Hill

Gallant: This war may take months, ‘but in the end there will be no Hamas’ The Times of Israel

Israel Is About to Make a Terrible Mistake Thomas Friedman, NYT. When you’ve lost the Moustache of Understanding…

Israel’s bombing of Gaza undercuts the West’s Ukraine moralism WaPo

What Israel should do now Vox

The Limits of Outside Opinion in Gaza Drezner’s World

Israel Security Agency creates new unit to hunt, kill every Hamas terrorist in Oct. 7 surprise attacks: report FOX

Do Targeted Killings Weaken Terrorist Groups? Max Boot, Homeland Security News

Again, Fallujah: 10mi²; Bakhmut: 16.1mi²; Mariupol: 64.09 mi²; Gaza: 140.9 mi². There are a lot of buildings still standing in Gaza:

In this shot, I’m seeing plenty of buildings still standing. (In principle, never go by the dramatic close-up. Always go by the wide-angle or aerial view.) I have not seen the math on how many bombs it would take the IDF to “flatten” Gaza, or indeed whether it has the capability to do so (leaving aside nuclear weapons). And if they can do so, what then? Tunnel warfare, as in Vietnam? And then the “bunker busters.” Presumably they will work on Gazan geology, but I don’t recall seeing anyone even make that claim, let alone prove it. (I know Gaza City is one part of Gaza, but I’m assuming that Gaza is so dense that for all practical — and tactical — purposes it’s a single city.) I’m sure Israel can make Gaza a living hell. That’s not the same as defeating Hamas, even on (or under) Gazan ground. Of course, Israel could just seal the border for two months, and then send the troops in wearing moonsuits.

The Hell of Urban Warfare Is Not Unique to Gaza The Tablet

The Inevitable, Ongoing Failure of Israel’s Gaza Strategy RAND

Israel tells Gazans to move south or risk being seen as ‘terrorist’ partner Reuters

From all over the world, Israel’s diaspora return to join war effort South China Morning Post

An unsanctioned coterie of pro-Israel quasi-lobbyists has descended on D.C. Politico

Israeli premier accused of destroying evidence to avoid responsibility for Hamas attack Anadolu Agency

Settle for what? Phoebe Maltz Bovy on a Jewish existential dilemma The Canadian Jewish Newsd

Biden is dangling border security money to try to get billions more for Israel and Ukraine AP

European Disunion

Could Israel-Hamas war lead to another winter energy crisis for Europe? Al Monitor. If only Europe had alternative sources of supply!

Dear Old Blighty

Historic by-elections and the curious case of Tamworth FT. The deck: “Exclusive: 64 per cent of Britons think the UK is in a recession, according to More in Common polling.”

Banks accused of short-changing small businesses with poor interest rates Telegraph

New Not-So-Cold War

With All Eyes on Israel-Gaza, Ukraine is losing war momentum Responsible Statecraft. An imperial hegemon that can’t walk and chew gum at the same time?

Former German Chancellor claims he “mediated” situation between Ukraine and Russia in 2022 Ukrainska Pravda (original).

South of the Border

Argentine economy minister bags surprise win over chainsaw-wielding populist in presidential poll France24. Commentary:

Tankers: Positive News From Venezuela Hellenic Shipping News

O Canada

Independent Quebec would have its own currency and army, PQ says Montreal Gazette

Our Famously Free Press

Europe’s Largest News Aggregator Orders Editors to Play Down Palestinian Deaths The Intercept

Digital Watch

How AI reduces the world to stereotypes Rest of World

Microsoft fixes the Excel feature that was wrecking scientific data The Verge

Airbnb Nightmare: Pregnant Host’s Home Destroyed After Guests Flood Property San Francisco Standard

Supply Chain

How a Fertilizer Shortage Is Spreading Desperate Hunger NYT

The Gallery

Will Banksy’s Identity Finally Be Unmasked in a Defamation Lawsuit Brought by a U.K. Greeting Card Company? artnet

Imperial Collapse Watch

Why America Is Out of Ammunition Matt Stoller, Big

America needs a bigger, better bureaucracy Noah Smith, Noahpinion. “[T]he U.S. suffers from a distinct lack of state capacity. We’ve outsourced many of our core government functions to nonprofits and consultants, resulting in cost bloat and the waste of taxpayer money.” Not to mention the corporations the NGOs and consultants bring in!

Guillotine Watch

The yacht bros who’ll sell you part of a megaboat Axios

Black Injustice Tipping Point

Black-Owned Land Is Under Siege in the Brazos Valley Texas Monthly

The President Vs. The Klan: Ulysses S. Grant’s Battle Against White Supremacist Terror 3 Quarks Daily

Collection Cost Lapham’s Quarterly

Beyond the Myth of Rural America The New Yorker

Class Warfare

The Radical Street Sellers of London JSTOR Daily

Ice cream and potato chips are just as addictive as cocaine or heroin: research NY Post. Hence the appeal of “urgency of normal”?

Ursula K. Le Guin on Change, Menopause as Rebirth, and the Civilizational Value of Elders The Marginalian

On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems PNAS. From the Asbstract:

A pervasive wonder of the natural world is the evolution of varied systems, including stars, minerals, atmospheres, and life. These evolving systems appear to be conceptually equivalent in that they display three notable attributes: 1) They form from numerous components that have the potential to adopt combinatorially vast numbers of different configurations; 2) processes exist that generate numerous different configurations; and 3) configurations are preferentially selected based on function. We identify universal concepts of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—that underpin function and drive systems to evolve through the exchange of information between the environment and the system. Accordingly, we propose a “law of increasing functional information”: The functional information of a system will increase (i.e., the system will evolve) if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.

Is this woo woo? (I’m not sure about #3. What about hysteresis? What about chance? What about spandrels?)

Antidote du jour (via):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
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.