Euclid’s first images: the dazzling edge of darkness European Space Agency. Image:

What You Need to Know About Winter Solstice 2023 Time

The coming dystopia will be a robust public-private partnership WaPo

Programmable or ‘purpose-bound’ money is coming, probably as a feature in central bank digital currencies The Register. Like gift cards?!

Dog-themed memecoins are pawing their way back into investors’ hearts TechCrunch

Happy Christmas (Covid’s Over) Bloomberg. For Mr. Market, at least.

Sniffing women’s tears reduces aggressive behavior in men (press release) PLOS

Climate

Rolls-Royce begins tests on using hydrogen for commercial airlines Business Standard

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

Composting in the Winter: 7 Tips to Ensure Rich Compost Come Spring Gardenista (christofay).

#COVID19

An overview on viral interference during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic Frontiers in Pediatrics

A Systematic Review Of COVID-19 Misinformation Interventions: Lessons Learned Health Affairs

COVID test supplier received billions in pandemic contracts after submitting edited results Global News

China?

China’s imports of Dutch chip-making equipment surged tenfold in November after Washington tightened restrictions South China Morning Post

US, China top military officials hold first talks in more than a year Al Jazeera

Hong Kong court rejects publisher Jimmy Lai’s bid to toss sedition charge Al Jazeera

China tries to ‘bury the memory’ and trauma of zero-COVID era Al Jazeera. No trauma from the two million deaths since Xi, like Biden, “let ‘er rip”!

Japan to sell missiles to US in ‘really welcome’ easing of arms export rules South China Morning Post

Japan is a cuddlier friend to South-East Asia than America or China The Economist

Commentary: No, seriously, this is one Japan scandal that’s important Channel News Asia

Syraqistan

The Red Sea Crisis, Explained Foreign Policy

Yemen Houthi leader warns ‘any American targeting of our country will be targeted by us’ FOXd

Beijing shrugs at U.S. call for help protecting Red Sea shipping Politico

Red Sea coalition: Why have major Arab nations opted out? Anadolu Agency

Coalition deploys US Navy’s lethal Swiss Army Knife to send a message to Iran and China FOIX

Vessels still heading into Red Sea war zone SeaTrade Maritime News

Beyond Gaza: How Yemen’s Houthis gain from attacking Red Sea ships Al Jazeera

CIA’s chief spy William Burns emerges as key figure in Hamas hostage crisis Straits Times

The case of al-Shifa: Investigating the assault on Gaza’s largest hospital WaPo. “The evidence presented by the Israeli government falls short of showing that Hamas had been using the hospital as a command and control center.”

US Is Reportedly Working to Prevent Conference on Geneva Convention Violations Truthout

This is How We Fought in Gaza Soldiers׳ testimonies and photographs from Operation Protective Edge˝ (2014) (PDF) Breaking the SIlence

How the Israeli military is bombing ‘safe’ areas in southern Gaza France24

One-State Solution Harpers

I can’t write about Gaza Crooked Timber

European Disunion

Sovereign Virtues? New Left Review

New Not-So-Cold War

Putin scents historic victory amid growing signs of Western weakness The Atlantic Council

West is thinking of scenarios where Putin wins in Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda

Elements of an Eventual Russia-Ukraine Armistice and the Prospect for Regional Stability in Europe RAND

It’s Time to Negotiate With Russia The Nation. Let me know how that turns out….

Ukraine war latest: Defense minister says he wants to mobilize Ukrainian men living abroad Kyiv Independent. Stalemate, totally.

Ukraine’s Front-Line Troops Are Getting Older: ‘Physically, I Can’t Handle This’ WSJ. Ditto.

Bandera mythologies and their traps for Ukraine Andrii Portnov, OpenDemocarcy. From 2016, still germane.

The pitfalls of seizing Russian assets to fund Ukraine FT

South of the Border

Anarcho-Capitalism Phenomenal World. Argentina.

López Obrador and Biden discuss border ‘enforcement actions’ Mexico News Daily

Biden Administration

Senate returns dozens of nominations to Biden to restart process in 2024, including Julie Su Politico

U.S. Steel’s acquisition will end a difficult marriage that forged — and constrained — Pittsburgh’s identity Public Source

Why the U.S. steel industry is dying Noah Smith, Noahpinion

Digital Watch

Artificial intelligence is a liability The Register

HHS finalizes ‘first of its kind’ AI transparency rule for health care tech firms Benefits Pro

Technology Is Secretly Stealing Your Time. Here’s How to Get It Back Scientific American

Healthcare

ADHD drug prices rise as Adderall shortage leaves patients scrimping to fill prescriptions USA Today

Imperial Collapse Watch

Professor John Mearsheimer: 2023: Lessons for Biden, Zelenskyy, and Netanyahu (video) Judge Napolitano, YouTube

Impolite Society The Baffler. On the State Department.

Guillotine Watch

Billionaires Turn to Legal Bribery in Quest to Build Utopia The Daily Beast

Class Warfare

Let Them Deliver Cake? The Supreme Court, Bakery Drivers, and the Federal Arbitration Act On Labor

The Rich Have all the “Excess” Cash Now (excerpt) The Overshoot

Hubble Telescope captures a galaxy’s ‘forbidden’ light in stunning new image Space.com. Image:

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

[embedded content]

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.