Gonzalo Lira was born today; like Frederick in the Pirates of Penzance, February 29 would have been his birthday. –lambert
The Groundhog Watchers Nautilus. Citizen science!
One of world’s smallest fish found to make sound as loud as a gunshot Guardian
‘Dune’ stunt double? Terrifying creature may be even weirder than movie’s sandworms Study Finds. But most are less than six inches long. So far.
Berkshire Hathaway’s 2023 Results — Overview The Rational Walk
Climate
Nature’s Heartbeat, Visualized Climate & Capitalism
Texas wildfires forces shutdown at nuclear weapon facility. Here is what we know AP
The reawakening of America’s nuclear dinosaurs Searchlight New Mexico
#COVID19
Why Are We Still Flu-ifying COVID? Katherine Wu, The Atlantic
China?
‘Two sessions’ 2024: China signals more fiscal pump-priming for the economy South China Morning Post
China broadens legislature on state security to include ‘work secrets’ Business Standard
Welcome to China’s Cat Island, where lucky strays wait for a new home WaPo
AI in Southeast Asia: As bad actors gain new high-tech weapons, so too for the defenders Channel News Asia
Vietnam’s ‘rice bowl’ cracks in monster heatwave Channel News Asia
Sri Lanka ends visas for hundreds of thousands of Russians staying there to avoid war Independent
One in Four Town and Village Elections in Japan Going Uncontested Nippon
India
With handouts, piped water and cooking gas, India’s Modi woos women voters Channel News Asia
Syraqistan
Beyond the Houthis’ attacks on shipping: The absurdity of the India-Middle East Corridor Hellenic Shipping News. “Dry canals cannot compete with ‘wet’ canals! And that is why there is no truly dry canal in the world.”
Israel, ICJ and the movement for a principled and just world order Al Jazeera
New Not-So-Cold War
Pro-Russian separatists in Moldova seek Moscow’s ‘protection’ France24. The tail end of Moldova is about 60km from Odessa….
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry on appeal by Transnistrian “lawmakers”: Russia cannot be a peacemaker Ukrainska Pravda
ISW: Russia holds offensive initiative Kyiv Independent
‘There’s only Plan A’: Defense leaders fear failure in Ukraine Politico
Nord Stream: Denmark closes investigation into pipeline blast BBC. So I guess Blob appendage Anne Applebaum’s husband was right. His famously deleted tweet:
Emmanuel Macron’s provocative advocacy of European troops on the ground in Ukraine Gilbert Doctorow
Germany rules out sending any troops to Ukraine Anadolu Agency
Estonian PM supports Macron’s idea of Western troops in Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda. No doubt.
Fire Jens Stoltenberg Now Before It Is Too Late! Weapons and Strategy
Russia-Ukraine War: China’s Vanishing Neutrality The Diplomat
The US art market is a sanctions black hole FT
Biden Administration
McConnell departure leaves GOP’s Reagan wing reeling Politico
House Freedom Caucus mocks McConnell as ‘(D-Ukraine)’ after retirement news The Hill
Congress reaches fiscal 2024 funding deal, new stopgaps in hopes of averting shutdown Government Executive
Johnson ‘unchanged’ on Ukraine, border crisis despite pressure at ‘intense’ White House meeting FOX
Biden executive order aims to stop Russia and China from buying Americans’ personal data Engadget. But not in the United States–
The Government Really Is Spying On You — And It’s Legal Politico
Antitrust
The $25B Kroger-Albertsons Merger Is Going to Fail Matt Stoller, BIG
2024
Biden just got a physical. But a cognitive test was not part of the assessment NPR. Here is the Physician to the President’s memo (PDF), addressed to Karine Jean-Pierre, interestingly. (Biden seems to be on a lot of medication, including statins, but presumbly interactions aren’t significant.) On gait: “The team concluded that much of his stiffness is in fact a result of degenerative (‘wear and tear’) osteoarthritic changes (or spondylosis) of his spine.” As readers know, I’m not a fan of remote diagnosis (and I’m still waiting for a White House “reporter” to ask Biden to count backwards by sevens during a presser). That said, the dogs aren’t barking in the night on this. The first non-barking dog is the White House: Given the givens, it seems reasonable to conclude that no cognitive tests were run because the White House, at a minimum, was unsure what the results would be. Therefore, the conclusion that “Biden has cognitive issues, known to his inner circle,” seems inescapable (and says nothing about their nature or degree, or the effects of hyypothesized “juice”). By the same token, I would expect the efficient Republican oppo machine to have produced serious, medically-driven videos documenting Biden’s gait, flubs, etc., by now. That hasn’t happened either. Perhaps they want to prop Biden up just as much as Democrats do?
The Supremes
The One Big Question (PDF) Richard M. Re, University of Virginia School of Law. “Should courts, particularly the US Supreme Court, have a lot of power?”
Spook Country
The CIA in Ukraine — The NY Times Gets a Guided Tour Patrick Lawrence, ScheerPost
Did The New York Times publish its “The Spy War: How the CIA Secretly Helps Ukraine Fight Putin” piece to reveal government secrets in the public’s interest? Or was it to convince Americans that “Now these intelligence networks are more important than ever?” John Kiriakou, ScheerPost
The Bezzle
A marker:
Prediction: A national government will be revealed this year to have been buying Bitcoin—the modern replacement for monetary gold—without having disclosed that fact publicly.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 28, 2024
Digital Watch
Google CEO calls AI tool’s controversial responses ‘completely unacceptable’ Semafor. Nonsense. This is PR-driven “Honey, I’ve changed”-style cope by Pichai. Anybody who knows anything about software development, especially in large corporations like Google, knows that Gemini was approved by multiple layers of management at every step of the way: whiteboarding, PowerPoints, demos, stand-ups, meetings, blah blah blah, and probably meetings with key vendors and clients, too. Gemini does everything that Google wants it to do, and any “guardrails” (how I hate that trope) installed now can be removed by Google at leisure.
Welcome to the Era of BadGPTs WSJ. “A new crop of nefarious chatbots with names like ‘BadGPT’ and ‘FraudGPT’ are springing up on the darkest corners of the web, as cybercriminals look to tap the same artificial intelligence behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT.” Implying, of course, that ChatGPT itself is not based on theft, and does not drive fraud. But nevertheless.
OpenAI sued, again, for scraping and replicating news stories The Register. The deck: “The Intercept, Raw Story, AlterNet want damages and to have their content removed from models.”
An update on the BBC’s plans for Generative AI (Gen AI) and how we plan to use AI tools responsibly BBC
Indexing the information age Aeon. Dublin Core (DC) metadata, 1995. Happy, innocent days. And today:
That was like, my entire work history from 2013 – 2018, videos that went insanely viral and were still bringing in thousands of dollars a month – just scrubbed from the internet, there isn’t even any record they ever existed.
— Jules Suzdaltsev (@jules_su) February 24, 2024
Assange
Julian Assange’s Grand Inquisitor The Chris Hedges Report
Justice Minister defends house arrest power for people feared to commit a hate crime in future Globe and Mail
Transportation
All Aboard the Bureaucracy Train Asterisk. Terrible headline, well worth a read. Deep-dive into public transportion cost structure, in the US and worldwide.
The Culture of Aviation Safety (excerpt) James Fallows, Breaking the News
The Carry-On-Baggage Bubble Is About to Pop The Atlantic
Zeitgeist Watch
This bookshop in Fort Collins is paying people to sit down and read quietly The Colorado Sun
Odd thrift store donation found to be a WWII-era grenade, prompts evacuations: ‘A rarity’ FOX
The Final Frontier
The mathematically perfect exoplanet system — a great place to search for alien tech Space.com
Guillotine Watch
A billionaire-backed campaign for a new California city is off to a bumpy start AP. “[Former Goldman Sachs trader Jan Sramek’s] California Forever company can count on the deep pockets of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, including philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.” Then I’m sure everything will be fine.
Class Warfare
Scenes From the Bat Cave Maureen Tkacik, Prospect. The headline is cute but doesn’t match the impact of the post, which shows how private equity looting turns hospitals into death traps.
Environment: The wealthy cause climate change; the poor suffer its consequences Pearls and Irritations
Is The New York Times’ newsroom just a bunch of Ivy Leaguers? (Kinda, sorta.) Nieman Lab
Amid cholera outbreaks, desperate countries face depleted global vaccine stockpile Center for Disease Research and Policy. I blame the lockdowns.
Antidote du jour (via):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
