Lobsters In The Shallows Are Emerging From Their Caves Portland Press-Herald

Meet The Italian ‘Fruit Detective’ Who Investigates Centuries-Old Paintings For Clues About Produce That Has Disappeared From The Kitchen Table Smithsonian

Climate

Plant Co2 Uptake Rises By Nearly One Third In New Global estimates (press release) Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Wildfires and smoke are becoming more deadly around the world, research shows Wildfire Today

An ‘Obamacare’ for homeowners insurance could protect against climate change The Hill

The myth of plastic recycling is finally unravelling The Telegraph (MT).

Water

Ensuring Resilient Water Infrastructure Requires Creative Financing RAND

Syndemics

The Four Rapid COVID PCR Tests You Can Take at Home (and Why You Should) Life Hacker

China?

Why Xi Jinping changed his mind on China’s fiscal stimulus FT

Commentary: Were warnings of Hong Kong’s demise as a financial hub exaggerated? Channel News Asia

Beijing hails cross-strait policies as Taiwanese visitor numbers, residence bids surge South China Morning Post

Syraqistan

Hezbollah hiding more than $500M in gold, cash under hospital in Lebanon, IDF says FOX. The deck: “Israel said it has no plans to target the bunker hiding trove under the al-Sahel hospital in Beirut.”

Israel launched a dozen attacks on UN troops in Lebanon, says leaked report FT

What Type of Leader Will Hezbollah Have Next? Lawfare

After Nasrallah London Review of Books

Israel Cancelled Plans For Earlier Strike on Iran After Key Documents Leak – Reports Military Watchd

Media Blackout on Leaked U.S. Intelligence Docs Ken Klipperstein

What leaked US assessment of Israeli plans to strike Iran shows BBC

Quiet and muted refusal: Regular fighters are no longer willing to continue fighting (Google translate) Makom

‘He got out of Gaza, but Gaza did not get out of him’: Israeli soldiers returning from war struggle with trauma and suicide CNN. Commentary:

Israel proposes ‘limited’ cease-fire without withdrawal from Gaza: Report Anadolu Agency. Commentary:

US authorizes CIA mercenaries to run biometric concentration camps in Gaza Strip Dan Cohen, Uncaptured Media. The deck: “A private intelligence corporation billed as “Uber for war zones” is preparing to create what Israel hopes will be the model for supplanting Hamas rule in Gaza.”

Paying ‘Israel’s’ war bills may force difficult choices: AP Al Mayadeen

New Not-So-Cold War

Ukraine’s defense minister outlines Kyiv’s ‘victory plan’ David Ignatius, WaPo. The deck: “Rustem Umerov explains a pragmatic vision for ending the war with Russia.”

Poland to request access to secret appendices of Ukraine’s Victory Plan Ukrainska Pravda

Biden’s New $400 Million Ukraine Package ‘Not Enough’: Ex-CIA Director Newsweek. Petraeus.

Is NATO ready for war with Russia? Kyiv Independent

Why Europe Is Unprepared to Defend Itself Bloomberg

Why should Putin negotiate? The Spectator

Russia’s elusive war aims FT

Kiel Institute Report on Ukraine War Manufacturing: A Deep Dive Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker

A cold shower for Euro-integrationists. What happened with the referendum and presidential elections in Moldova? JAM News

Why the majority in Moldova votes against its European future European Pravda

Russian Pacific Fleet Redux: Japan’s North as a New Center of Gravity War on the Rocks

BRICS

Meeting with journalists from BRICS countries Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

What can we expect from the 2024 BRICS summit? Brookings Institution

Can the BRICS beat the G7? BNE Intellinews

Can BRICS Finally Take On the West? Foreign Policy

Putin seeks unity at BRICS summit to challenge Western ‘hegemony’ France24

Malaysia BRICS Bid: Malaysia keen to join expanding grouping CGTN

2024

Trump’s McDonald’s visit served up four brilliant political moments FOX

Trump Accuses Kamala Harris Of Lying About Having Job At White House The Onion

Ukraine May Cost Trump the Election Rolling Stone

Who would run Kamala Harris’s economy? FT

Trump US rallies leave behind unpaid dues, again and again Al Jazeera

Digital Watch

Requiem for Raghavan Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?

Police State Watch

Lawsuit Argues Warrantless Use of Flock Surveillance Cameras Is Unconstitutional 404 Media

Antitrust

The FTC Is Better When It’s Less Ambitious Matt Yglesias, Bloomberg

The Final Frontier

Ancient meteor four times the size of Mount Everest may have sparked life on Earth Daily Mail

Most of Earth’s meteorites may have come from the same 3 spots Space.com

Sports Desk

World Series! Ross Barkan, Political Currents

The Liberty Were Built, Bought, And Blessed Defector

Seven Essential Texts That Show the Human Side of Black Legal History Literary Hub

Class Warfare

Another Nobel for Anglocentric Neoliberal Institutional Economics Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Challenging Development+

Big and small businesses are nothing like each other Tax Research UK

Kids are sucking down baby food pouches at record rates. ‘We’re going to pay for it,’ experts say LA Times (Carla).

How the Human Brain Contends With the Strangeness of Zero Quanta

Antidote du jour (Steven G. Johnson):

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.