California’s grizzlies: gargantuan, dangerous meat-lovers. Totally wrong, research shows LA Times
Watch: Man Gets Rare Footage of a Jaguar in Southern Arizona Field & Stream
Huge ring of galaxies challenges thinking on cosmos BBC
Earthsickness At Sea JSTOR Daily
Climate
Canada’s record-breaking wildfires have widespread logging partly to blame Wildfire Today. On Canadian wildfires, see NC here.
Human ‘behavioural crisis’ at root of climate breakdown, say scientists Guardian
#COVID19
“We need to talk about the different ways that wastewater sequencing is performed” (Thread Reader) Marc Johnson, @SolidEvidence
Long COVID manifests with T cell dysregulation, inflammation and an uncoordinated adaptive immune response to SARS-CoV-2 Nature. Chalk up another one for Leonardi.
Natural SARS-CoV-2 infection in dogs: Determination of viral loads, distributions, localizations, and pathology Acta Tropica. Even if infecting children doesn’t bother people, perhaps infecting dogs will.
China?
China says ‘reunification’ with Taiwan remains ‘inevitable’ after vote Channel News Asia
Taiwan tells China to ‘face reality’ and respect election results France24
US does not support Taiwan independence: Biden Anadolu Agency
China Wants To Ditch The Dollar NOEMA. Big if true. Worth a read for better understanding of China’s economy, in any case.
South Korea
Commentary: K-pop without the ‘K’ just won’t pop Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Court case against Israel could restore international law InfoBrics
South Africa’s genocide case against Israel is imperfect but persuasive. It may win Kenneth Roth, Guardian
South Africa’s legal team in the genocide case against Israel has won praise. Who are they? The Conversation
Prof. John Mearsheimer: Yes, Israel Is Committing Genocide (video) Scheerpost
Bibi’s war aims:
We will restore security to both the south and the north. Nobody will stop us – not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else.
— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) January 13, 2024
Don’t Bomb the Houthis Foreign Affairs
All Ships Advised to Avoid Red Sea While Houthi Vow Retaliation for Strikes Maritime Executive
Why global commerce is now in the crossfire Good Authority, Brookings Institution
What the Red Sea conflict means for domestic transportation Freight Waves
‘It is a time of witch hunts in Israel’: teacher held in solitary confinement for posting concern about Gaza deaths Guardian
Israel’s ‘People’s Army’ at War Foreign Policy. The deck: “Israelis have an especially close bond with their military, but Oct. 7 shook their trust to the core.” I’m not so sure.
European Disunion
Origins of the Sicilian Mafia: The Market for Lemons The Journal of Economic History. From 2017, but too fascinating to let pass by. “The main hypothesis is that the growth and consolidation of the Sicilian mafia is strongly associated with an exogenous shock in the demand for lemons after 1800, driven by James Lind’s discovery on the effective use of citrus fruits in curing scurvy.”
Dear Old Blighty
The costly, controversial outsourcing of NHS mental health services FT
New Not-So-Cold War
Who Is Gonzalo Lira? Pro-Putin American Expat Dies in Ukrainian Jail James Bickerton, Newsweek. Commentary:
Neither Biden nor his top officials ever once uttered a word about Gonzalo Lira, despite his being an American imprisoned by Ukraine for speaking out, and despite the most unhinged Ukrainians threatening Lira’s life.
That signaled to Ukraine that they could do anything to him: https://t.co/ogTvfjYfHl
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 13, 2024
Russia says Ukraine’s security cooperation deal with UK leaves it without chances for peace talks Anadolu Agency
Are there any winners in the Russia-Ukraine war? Gilbert Doctorow
Russia’s Medvedev warns of nuclear response if Ukraine hits missile launch sites Reuters
Bloodied and exhausted: Ukraine’s effort to mobilize more troops hits trouble Politico
Russia claims to have struck ‘Ukrainian military-industrial complex’ France24
Russia Making Growing Use of A-50U ‘Flying Radar’ Jets to Hunt Down Remaining Ukrainian Fighters Military Watch
Pentagon finds no credible evidence of US arms embezzlement in Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda
Boeing
The fallout for Boeing will extend far beyond the 737 Max 9 grounding The Air Current (PI).
Boeing facing class-action lawsuit following near-disaster on Alaska Airlines flight 1282 KOMO (PI).
‘This Has Been Going on for Years.’ Inside Boeing’s Manufacturing Mess. WSJ
It’s Time to Nationalize and Then Break Up Boeing Matt Stoller, BIG
Digital Watch
Anthropic researchers find that AI models can be trained to deceive TechCrunch. That’s not a bug. It’s a feature (and it does make you wonder why Silicon Valley isn’t training an AI to be, say, a moral exemplar).
AI fears creep into finance, business and law WaPo
Daughter of George Carlin horrified someone cloned her dad with AI for hour special The Register
FTC bans major data broker from selling invasive location tracking details The Verge
Liv Boeree: On Competition, Moloch Traps, and the A.I. Arms Race (transcript) Eric Topol, Ground Truths
2024
Saving Bidenomics Boston Review
Biden Administration
Johnson defies right flank, saying bipartisan spending plan ‘remains’ Politico
Congressional leaders reach short-term spending deal to keep government open until March NBC
The Supremes
Epistemic Communities in American Public Law Cass R. Sunstein, SSRN. “I suggest that judges live in, and help constitute, epistemic communities, broadly defined as ‘professional networks with authoritative and policy-relevant expertise.’ One result is epistemic overconfidence, which is a serious problem in American public law. The existence of epistemic communities, and the problem of epistemic overconfidence, create challenges for the project of originalism, but they also create challenges for public law more broadly.”
Healthcare
Is Vaccination Approaching a Dangerous Tipping Point? JAMA. “It is sobering to note that vaccine hesitancy to childhood vaccines, such as the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, has been found to cluster in middle- to high-income areas among parents with at least a college degree who preferred social media narratives over evidence-based vaccine information delivered by clinicians.” Commentary:
Thanks, PMC.
Zeitgeist Watch
Liberalism is battered but not yet broken Martin Wolf, FT. “What liberals share is trust in human beings to decide things for themselves. That implies the right to make their own plans, express their own opinions and participate in public life.”
Rebecca Solnit: Slow Change Can Be Radical Change LitHub
Book Nook
I behave like a fiend London Review of Books
The Gallery
Edward Hopper’s ‘Nighthawks’ Captures the Isolation of American Modernity. Here Are 3 Things You Might Not Know About It Artnet
Imperial Collapse Watch
A Navy In Crisis: It’s Time For The Conference Of Admirals gCaptain
When The Hell That Is War Loses Its Power The American Interest
Why WA real estate agents are leaving nation’s most powerful group Seattle Times (PI).
Class Warfare
Companies Are Still Cutting White-Collar Jobs WSJ
The creator economy is ready for a workers’ movement TechCrunch
Johns Hopkins Medicine CEO, VP ‘repudiate’ ‘privilege’ definition in diversity newsletter following backlash FOX. “Privilege is an unearned benefit given to people who are in a specific social group.” So all benefits need to be “earned,” eh? Now I see why DEI spread like kudzu over every neoliberal institution; it’s, as we say, bug-compatible with it.
Want a Cure for Doomscrolling? Try P.G. Wodehouse The Common Reader
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
