Readers, I apologize for being slightly prolix. Thinking I had gathered too little, I overcompensated by gathering too much. –lambert

Stunning Fields of Sunflowers Are Blanketing North Dakota Smithsonian

Inside the Nerve-Racking Dive to an Active Submarine Volcano Smithsonian

China leads race to modernise global money flows Bloomberg (Furzy Mouse). Project mBridge; see the Bank of International Settlements (2022).

Russia’s CBDC – Exploring the Truth of Russia’s Central Bank Simplicius the Thinker

What Earnings Recession? The Big Picture

Climate

Soaring temperatures and food prices threaten violent unrest The Economist

‘Like something out of a horror movie’: At least 6 dead and communities decimated in Maui wildfires CNN. Visuals:

CartujaQanat – Journal 3: A 10°C reduction with ZeroNet energy consumption in open spaces is possible. Sevilla made it. Urban Innovative Actions

#COVID19

COVID cases up 55% in New York, doctors warn of new variants NY Post. More fearmongering from a liberal house organ. Oh, wait…. 

‘Underwhelming’: NIH trials fail to test meaningful long Covid treatments — after 2.5 years and $1 billion STAT (MV). The budget: “Observational study of patient cohort, NYU Langone (47%).” Utter debacle. Kudos to STAT for publishing the story. 

Vaccine hesitancy behind most decisions to not get COVID-19 vaccines Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

Vistagen Announces Positive Top-Line Results from Phase 3 PALISADE-2 Trial of Fasedienol (PH94B) Nasal Spray in Social Anxiety Disorder (press release) Vistagen. S-o-o-o-o…. A nasal spray for anxiety is further along in the pipeline than a nasal spray for a Level 3 Biohazard? Joe, Jeff, Ashish, Rochelle, Mandy, good job. I’m sure Fasedienol will do very well!

The Post-Pandemic r* Liberty Street Economics. Not R0, r* [joke ha ha]. 

Towards a post-pandemic future for global pathogen genome sequencing PLOS Biology. “Ultimately, pathogen genomic surveillance was implemented at an unprecedented scale in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, as of May 9, 2023, 15,532,821 SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences had been submitted to the GISAID database.” Yes, and the institutional foundation for all these efforts is extremely fragile, as we show here.

China?

China Relies on U.S., Allies for Hundreds of Products WSJ

Joe Biden plans new restrictions on US investments in China, including Hong Kong, declares ‘emergency’ on sensitive tech South China Morning Post

Zombie Economy New Left Review. “A typical overaccumulation crisis.” Interesting!

Commentary: An expanded BRICS could reset world politics but picking new members isn’t straightforward Channel News Asia

Why are world leaders racing to the Pacific Islands? Al Jazeera

Mining Revenues Undermined Challenging Development+

The Koreas

How the World Scout Jamboree descended into chaos in South Korea Reuters

South Koreans are Happier than They Think: Data The Blue Roof

India

India’s Chandrayaan-3 moon rover enters lunar orbit, snaps stunning photos (video) Space.com

The Lucky Country

Aboriginal geoglyphs years in the making sprout across Western Australia ABC Australia (Barry).

Africa

Victoria Nuland, Washington’s ‘regime change Karen’, wants to speak to the manager in Niger RT

Niger coup: Blinken says Russia’s Wagner taking advantage of turmoil France24

Africa After Prigozhin Is an Opportunity for the West Foreign Policy

‘It’s a fight for our existence’: No sign of taxi strike ending yet, as talks continue News24

Syraqistan

Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan The Intercept

US says no framework agreed yet for Israel-Saudi normalisation deal Al Jazeera

European Disunion

European Gas Jumps Most Since March 2022 on LNG Strike Vote Bloomberg. “Prices soared as much as 40% intraday.” Woo hoo!

New Not-So-Cold War

Decision on meeting with Putin is for Zelenskyy to make – US Department of State Ukrainska Pravda

Zaporizhzhia NPP loses power from main 750 kV line overnight: on verge of another power outage Ukrainska Pravda

Ukraine war: West lining Putin’s coffers, German army staff ‘spying’ for Russia, Crimea drone attack Euronews

South of the Border

US Moves to Curtail China’s Economic Investment in the Caribbean Black Agenda Report

Anti-corruption presidential candidate slain at campaign event in Ecuador’s capital Associated Press. Fernando Villavicencio. 

Young people’s anger fuels far-right populist as Argentina’s election nears OpenDemocracy. Commentary:

The Supremes

As Docket Shrinks, Supreme Court Lawyers Embrace Circuit Court Work National Law Journal

Digital Watch

How fraudsters are exploiting and retraining large language models American Banker. Nobody could have predicted…. 

Can a Digital Artwork Outlast a 19th-Century Painting? The Answer Is Complicated as Artists, Dealers, and Conservators Battle Obsolescence in the Field Artnet. The answer is simple. No.

Crikey panics about AI journalism. It should MacroBusiness. See also.

The New Prophets of Empathy The Baffler

Sea-Intelligence reports sustained halt to demand collapse Container News

Supply Chain

Maersk’s integrator of the seas strategy tested by return to normality SeaTrade Maritime

Shipowners look to avoid Panama Canal as wait times reach 21 days Hellenic Shipping News

Healthcare

Reading Kafka in the Hospital Cafeteria NEJM. Worth clearing your cookies for.

We need a billing code for this:

Sports Desk

Premier League is letting Manchester United and Man City fans down Manchester Evening News

Work Rate and Control – Ireland’s drive for World Cup glory The Analysis Guy. Rugby.

Short Seller Hindenburg Nabs Tiny Gains Off $173 Billion Carnage Bloomberg. The deck: “Nate Anderson has wiped out as much as $99 billion from three billionaires’ wealth this year.” That’s a damn shame.

Class Warfare

100 days of WGA strike: Writers and actors stand resolute, but studios remain unyielding WION

Meat processor ordered to pay fines after teen lost hand in grinder Associated Press. Guess how much.

Maybe You’re Not Working Class … From the Forests of Arduinna

Diversifying Society’s Leaders? The Causal Effects of Admission to Highly Selective Private Colleges NBER. From the Abstract: “We conclude that highly selective private colleges currently amplify the persistence of privilege across generations, but could diversify the socioeconomic backgrounds of America’s leaders by changing their admissions practices.” Indeed!

Age of Invention: Cash Cows Anton Howes, Age of Invention

Were the First Laws Sung? (Part 2 of 2) Honest Broker. Could there be such a song-book today?

Robbie Robertson, driving force behind roots-rock icons the Band, dies at 80 LA Times. Commentary:

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Antidote du jour (via):

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.