50 Fantastic ‘Cat Memes’ To Help You Get Through Hard Times Bored Panda (furzy)
South Korea passes law to ban dog meat Anadolu Agency
Peregrine moon lander carrying human remains doomed after ‘critical loss’ of propellant Live Science (furzy). Those Native Americans have some serious mojo! Recall they fiercely opposed the moon burial as desecration. Or maybe the moon itself agreed with them.
My 50 Favorite Albums from the Golden Age of Capitol Records (Part 3 of 3) Ted Gioia
Problematic: My favourite English word kamilkazani (Randy K)
The Asian world order aeon
Cells Across the Body Talk to Each Other About Aging Quanta (David L)
#COVID-19
Brain Injury Markers Not Detected by Normal Blood Testing Found Months after COVID-19 Infections Inside Precision Medicine (Anthony L). From December, still germane.
Hospitals strained across the US as over 2 million Americans now infected with COVID each day WSWS
COVID means more illness, more disability, more death, it also means healthcare shortages, staff shortages, record absences, and dangerous and inconvenient delays
NOT sustainable. Zero public health is not the answer to a pandemic that mutated around vaccine protection QUICKLY https://t.co/EOVdE4YG0f
— Julia Marie (@julia_doubleday) January 9, 2024
Climate/Environment
Earth shattered global heat record in 2023, flirting with warming limit, European agency says 9 News (Kevin W)
How global trade could fragment after the EU’s tax on ‘dirty’ imports Financial Times
Power companies paid civil rights leaders in the US south. They became loyal industry advocates Guardian (Paul R, Dr. Kevin)
Massive winter storm batters US, knocks out power ahead of brutal freeze Reuters. Our moderator katiebird lost power for >4 hours but still kept working on her phone. How many of you lost power?
China?
China Credit Woes Ease as Big Borrowers Reveal Payment Plans Bloomberg. Gee, just a few weeks ago, the financial and pundit press was speaking with close to one voice that a Chinese debt crisis was coming soon.
Mao’s famous Cultural Revolution swim across the Yangzi River finally explained Ramin Mazheri
How US curbs on China may revive its rust belt – the former industrial powerhouse near Russia South China Morning Post. Userfriendly: “Maybe not how I’d place the rust belt (geographically) for a Chinese audience, nonetheless a quite informative take on restructuring in China.”
Death and debt in China: how a ‘half-baked’ bankruptcy law offers few individuals a fresh start South China Morning Post. Userfriendly: “Holy shit it’s a wonder they have any economy at all, much less one rivaling our own. You are literally putting your life on the line just by starting a business.’
Old Blighty
How could England’s water system be fixed? Guardian
European Disunion
Eurozone economy heading for another downturn, warns ECB vice-president Financial Times
New enemy images: the “Nazi farmers” and the “pitchfork mob” and Farmers’ protests: All wheels stand still – but so does the analysis Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
Germany could face its own ‘Maidan’ – Medvedev RT
France is simply not a serious country anymore. Our new Prime Minister – Gabriel Attal – is 34 years old.
Here’s his CV:
– Went to one of the poshest high schools in Paris (École Alsacienne)
– Graduated university (Sciences Po) in Paris in 2012 with a Master of Public Affairs
-… pic.twitter.com/xGzHSNwqsA— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) January 9, 2024
South of the Border
Gunmen storm Ecuador television studio live on air BBC
Ecuador declares ‘internal armed conflict’ as gunmen take over live TV broadcast CNN (Kevin W)
Gaza
Video shows ‘assassination’ of 3 young Palestinian men, Israeli jeep running over a body Mondoweiss. Limited press access leads to more atomistic focus.
This Genocide Is Being Live-Streamed. We Can’t Say We Didn’t Know. Caitlin Johnstone (Dr. Kevin)
Blinken’s window dressing tour of Arab capitals Indian Punchline (Kevin W)
Netanyahu ‘In Real Trouble,’ IDF Can’t Control Gaza – Analyst Sputnik. Elijah Magnier.
US Palantir CEO flies company board to Israel in show of solidarity Times of Israel (Kevin W). This is the best Israel can drum up?
New Not-So-Cold War
Number of heavily wounded Ukrainian soldiers up by 30% — ABC TASS (guurst)
Russian mockery: Trying to give Sweden a geopolitical weight that the country does not have Expressen via machine translation (Micael T)
Seizing Russia’s frozen assets is the right move Andrew Kosenko and Joseph Stiglitz, Kyiv Independent (Kevin C)
West ready to back Ukraine ‘for years’ – UK foreign secretary RT
Germany protests. WSJ, Poland hiding Nord Stream info. Elenksy, Crimea counter-counteroffensive Alex Christoforou. Kevin W: “Alex gives Naked Capitalism a great shout out for sending him the story of the German manufacturer shutting down which he made his main Clown World. About the 40:30 min mark on.” Moi: We featured this story in Links, referred by Chuck L.
Imperial Collapse Watch
Severe Personnel Shortage Forces British Navy to Scrap Newly Refurbished Frigates: Broader Fleet Decline Continues Military Watch
Sunsetting the War on Terror — Or Not Karen Greenberg, TomDispatch
Biden
A Party of Short Sellers: Why Democrats Need to Re-Think Hunter’s Contempt Messenger
GOP Clown Car
Roger Stone reportedly said leading Democratic congressman ‘has to die’ Guardian. Userfriendly: “Paid for by the Eric Swalwell for senate campaign. I mean seriously. I guessed which congress-vampire (critter is too humanizing) half way through the title.”
Budget Brinksmanship
Border and immigration deal ‘doubtful’ this week amid bogged-down talks Politico
Speaker Johnson faces conservative unrest over funding deal The Hill
Our No Longer Free Press
Twitter changed my life for good. But the platform I loved no longer exists Guardian (Kevin W)
AI
Volkswagen says it’s putting ChatGPT in its cars for ‘enriching conversations’ The Verge. Paul R: “Double facepalm.”
AI Threatens to Push Human Fashion Models Out of the Picture Bloomberg (David L)
OpenAI admits it’s impossible to train generative AI without copyrighted materials EndGadget (Kevin W)
Studio Trickery New Left Review (Anthony L). From year end, still germane.
Generative AI Has a Visual Plagiarism Problem Experiments with Midjourney and DALL-E 3 show a copyright minefield Spectrum IEEE (David L)
GenAI could make KYC effectively useless TechCrunch. Paul R: “Slightly overblown, basically says deep fakes can fool online id checks where you upload a selfie holding your driver’s license. I always hated those anyway, and refused to do them.” Moi: Banks use that approach?!?!? I’ve never had one ask for anything so dumb.
The AI Octopus Project Syndicate (David L)
Falling Apart Boeing Airplanes
Boeing Supplier Ignored Warnings Of “Excessive Amount Of Defects,” Former Employees Allege The Lever
The Truth About Airplane Safety New York Times (David L)
The Bezzle
Bitcoin slides after SEC social media account is compromised, sends false ETF approval post CNBC (furzy)
The Latest Dirty Word in Corporate America: ESG Wall Street Journal (BC)
How to get rich in the 21st century Economist (David L)
Class Warfare
How Bankers Profit From Our Broken Economic System Gerald Epstein, Counterpunch
Walgreens sets sights on healthcare: What physicians need to know Becker’s Physician Leadership
Antidote du jour. Tracie H:
This little possum only LOOKS ferocious. A few years ago I was so worried about the stray cats in our backyard in all kinds of weather, that I made holes in coolers, and in this tub, and filled them with straw and a bit of Styrofoam for insulation. I think the holes were too big, because it didn’t seem that cats ever used them.
We only ever checked them when we needed to shift them someplace.
That’s what Don was doing when he discovered this possum. At first, h
e thought the expression on its face meant it was mad, but we soon remembered there’d been a baby possum in our yard back when a tegu (very large lizard) made an appearance, and there’d been a confrontation between the tegu and the baby possum after which we thought we’d seen the possum had a wounded mouth.We are so happy to see the wound had not been mortal.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
