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Wolf vs Coyote Field and Stream

How Is Our Current State Different from What We Would See in a Successful Inflation Soft Landing? Brad DeLong Grasping Reality

Explosion at world’s largest railyard in Nebraska prompts evacuations because of heavy toxic smoke AP. Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte,

Climate

Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries Nature

Feds spread $1 billion for tree plantings among US cities to reduce extreme heat and benefit health AP. We don’t need trees so much as we need forests.

How Plate Tectonics Shook Life into Existence JSTOR Daily

Inside Exxon’s Strategy to Downplay Climate Change WSJ. And yet, somehow, this is not disinformation.

#COVID19

Long COVID in a highly vaccinated population infected during a SARS-CoV-2 Omicron wave – Australia, 2022 (preprint) medRxiv. N = 22,744. Survey. From the Abstract: “In a highly vaccinated population (94% with >=3 vaccine doses), almost 20% of persons infected with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant reported symptoms consistent with Long COVID 90 days post diagnosis.”

California healthcare industry had highest COVID-19 death rate of all occupations early in pandemic Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

China?

Chinese economic activity data signals optimism after stimulus measures FT

How China’s Belt and Road Took Over the World The Diplomat

China’s Defense Minister Being Removed From Post, U.S. Officials Say WSJ

Surging Rice Prices Raise Specter of Asian Food Scare, HSBC Say Bloomberg

The Koreas

South Korea’s Large New F-35 Purchases Are Vital For America’s Pacific Strategy: But Are the Fighters Reliable? Miltary Watch

India

Veganism Isn’t the Answer to India’s Violent, Brahminical Dairy Industry Politics The Wire

Africa

Nigerian power grid in ‘total system collapse’ Reuters (Furzy Mouse).

Syraqistan

The End of America’s Middle East Foreign Policy. The deck: “The region’s four major countries have all forfeited Washington’s trust.”

Arabian Dreams Dror Poleg

New Not-So-Cold War

The hard lessons from Ukraine’s summer offensive FT. The deck: “The country’s military is enjoying some success but it will be slow-going and requires allies to increase ammunition supplies.” Those are “hard lessons”?

It is still far too early to write off Ukraine’s counteroffensive The Atlantic Council

The realists were right The New Statesman

A lighter, curved plate: first body armour for women showcased in Kyiv Ukrainska Pravda

Russia Is Winning The Industrial Warfare Race Moon of Alabama

Vlahos: Ukraine Shares Same Fate as the South in the American Civil War Agon. Well worth reading in full.

Normalizing fascism:

Find someone who looks at you the way liberal Democrats look at a fascist goon in uniform:

Zelenskyy is expected to visit Washington as Congress is debating $24 billion in aid for Ukraine AP

New Lessons U.S. Is Learning From The Air War Over Ukraine The Drive

History Turns Upside Down in a War Where the Koreas Are Suppliers NYT

2024

Biden’s Praetorian Media Guard Matt Taibbi, Racket News

Trump: ‘I never got … the credit that I deserved on COVID’ The Hill

Mayor Karen Bass “fearful that any day” migrants may be flown to L.A. Axios. And from June: Los Angeles City Council votes to make LA a sanctuary city CBS.

U.S. v. Google

United States & Co-Plaintiff States v. Google LLC: Plaintiffs’ Opening Statement (PowerPoint; PDF) United States Department of Justice. Redacted public version.

So what exactly is Google accused of? The Harvard Gazette

Googlers Told to Avoid Words Like ‘Share’ and ‘Bundle,’ US Says Bloomberg

Our Famously Free Press

Western Pravdas New Left Review

Bloomberg Hits BRICS as US Power Challenged FAIR

Brain ‘taken over by bits and pieces’ of short videos: The dangers of video clips on social media Anadolu Agency

The Final Frontier

Questions arise over authenticity of ‘alien’ corpses unveiled in Mexican Congress Anadolu Agency

NASA report finds no evidence UFOs have alien origins The Hill. Not sure whether to react with “Well, they wouldn’t, would they?” or “Thanks heavens the WEF and the Illuminati would need to put together a commmittee to negotiate on behalf this world. Anyhow, we run this link occasionally.

Digital Watch

‘America’s Got Talent’ judge Howie Mandel explains why he’s ’embracing AI’ FOX

The Bezzle

Fed economists sound alarm on hedge funds gaming US Treasuries Reuters

Gunz

Escaped Pennsylvania killer shot at by homeowner while stealing rifle from garage, police say NBC

Realignment and Legitimacy

As 2024 Looms, Neo-Nazis Are Returning to the Streets Vice (Furzy Mouse).

Class Warfare

Workers are on strike at all 3 Detroit auto makers for the first time in their union’s history AP. Commentary:

Auto Workers Strike Plants at All Three of the Big 3 Labor Notes

Rising Rates Make Big Companies Even Richer WSJ

The art of making good mistakes FT

Get a rabbit London Review of Books

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

Double bonus antidote, Feral Hog Watch Edition:

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.