Cats And Human Supremacy indi.ca
Your appendix is not, in fact, useless. This anatomy professor explains NPR
Hedge Funds Are Dealers Now Bloomberg
Climate
The COP Delusion: Decades of empty words and no action Climate & Capitalism
Cat 6 hurricanes have arrived Michael Mann, PNAS
Blue Ocean Event 2024? Arctic News
How a historic neighborhood became ‘ground zero’ for the Maui wildfire NBC
Water
In 2050, 33% of global river sub-basins could face water scarcity: Study Business Standard
Cost to water crops could nearly quadruple as San Luis Valley fends off climate change, fights with Texas and New Mexico The Colorado Sun
#COVID19
Temporal Association between COVID-19 Infection and Subsequent New-Onset Dementia in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (preprint) The Lancet. Metastudy. “Cognitive impairment was nearly twice as likely in COVID-19 survivors compared to those uninfected.”
Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 in Children Pediatrics. From the Abtract: “This state-of-the-art narrative review provides a summary of our current knowledge about PASC in children, including prevalence, epidemiology, risk factors, clinical characteristics, underlying mechanisms, and functional outcomes, as well as a conceptual framework for PASC based on the current National Institutes of Health definition.” Work product of NIH’s RECOVER program. PASC (“postacute sequelae of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection”) is an acronym coined — and I know you’ll find this hard to believe — by Anthony Fauci (“what it really is“), presumably so searches for “PASC” would be siloed from searches, by dull normals, for “Long Covid.” And so it goes.
China?
China’s prices fall at fastest rate in 15 years as economy battles deflation FT
“Fake Chinese income” mortgages fuel Toronto Real Estate Bubble: HSBC Bank Leaks The Bureau
PACFLEET CO Paparo Warns a Weak U.S. Maritime Sector Risk in Conflict with China USNI News. Commentary:
This excellent article highlights the US Military’s biggest strategic weakness if war erupts in the Pacific.
Paparo’s answers about sealift were good (not great) BUT his worst answer is not mentioned.
When asked about fuel storage capacity in the pacific he said the USAF can… https://t.co/kLTEcbxTjf
— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) February 3, 2024
Shifting Global Alliances: The Strategic Expansion of BRICS Forbes
Myanmar
‘The military is in chaos’: Cracks in the support base Frontier Myanmar
Syraqistan
Red Sea turmoil has so far spared oil supplies, but buyers have reasons to worry S&P Global
US, UK ship investors slapped by soaring Red Sea insurance Al Mayadeen but Chinese Ships Get Insurance Edge Navigating Red Sea gCaptain
The Houthis’ Next Target May Be Underwater Foreign Policy
Blinken says ‘a lot of work’ remains on Israel-Hamas truce talks Al Jazeera
‘We are on our way to absolute victory’, says Israeli PM BBC
Why is the US in Jordan and Syria? London Review of Books. “Rural fort soldiering [e.g., al-Tanf] is a classic imperial mode, so it isn’t unusual that the US does it in the Middle East, except that so many of the outposts in Syria and Iraq have become liabilities.” Well worth a read.
Asymmetries New Left Review
Meet the Israelis Physically Blocking the Ethnic Cleansing Unfolding in the West Bank Reader-Supported News
Commentary: Pakistan needs to get past ‘lock him up’ politics Channel News Asia. Yeah, sheesh, that’s Third World stuff.
Pakistan general elections 2024: Mobile phone services suspended across Pakistan as voting begins WION
European Disunion
For Europeans, Trump’s already back and America has abandoned Ukraine Politico
New Not-So-Cold War
Peace in Ukraine NYT. Will there be Nazis?
Zaluzhny calling on neo-Nazis to support him against Zelensky Infobrics
Dismissal on repeat: why Zelenskyy is (or isn’t) dismissing Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhnyi Ukrainska Pravda
South of the Border
Ecuador’s Internal Armed Conflict London Review of Books
Biden Administration
Democrats seek to salvage Ukraine aid after Senate vote fails FT
Senate Republicans officially block foreign aid bill with border changes Politico. The deck: “It marks the end of immigration negotiations that dragged on for four months.” Nobody could have predicted:
Putin’s on balls of his heels, and what are we doing? Stepping back? – Biden on failed aid bill Ukrainska Pravda. Biden: “The United States is viewed as — we are the essential nation. If the United States steps out of events, what happens. What happens then in the Middle East, the Taiwan Straits? What happens in Asia? What happens with Ukraine?” Every country but his own.
The Census Bureau halts changing how it asks about disabilities following a backlash AP
Our Famously Free Press
Exclusive: Tucker Carlson Could Face Sanctions Over Putin Interview Newsweek
There’s Nothing Wrong with Tucker Interviewing Putin. It’s Called Journalism. Zaid Jilani, Public. Not only that, the intracranial splatterfest in (sigh) “the liberal media” is going to generate clicks — and sorely needed revenue — for weeks, and various protusions of The Blob in think tanks and consultancies are going to make bank. What’s not to like?
X, formerly Twitter, becomes No. 1 app on US App Store on news of Tucker Carlson-Putin interview TechCrunch
Vladimir Putin Fast Facts CNN. A timeline. Time’s “Man of the Year” in 2007.
Digital Watch
‘Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything Cory Doctorow, FT
Morale plummets at Google as workers complain bosses are ‘inept’ and ‘boring’ SFGATE. Enshittification proceeds apace.
No, 3 million electric toothbrushes were not used in a DDoS attack Bleeping Computer
Personal Information is Property Jim Harper, SSRR. AEI. From the Abstract: “[I]nformation has acquired the characteristics of property in the common law sense. Consumers and businesses—each in their way and for their purposes—withhold or hoard personal information, trade it, process it, profit from it, and enjoy other rights to personal information that are in the ‘bundle of sticks’ that make up property rights.”
Supply Chain
New Report Sheds Light on Rapid Expansion of Arctic Shipping gCaptain
Boeing
Boeing Faces Potential Strike from Its Largest Union Manufacturing.net
Assange
The legal arguments in Julian Assange’s High Court extradition hearing on 20-21 February (thread) Stella Assange, Threadreader
Realignment and Legitimacy
No More Fairy Tales: Why the United States Needs a Whole New Operating System In These Times. From 2018, still germane. “Because corporations have constitutional ”rights,” if a community makes a decision to stop a bad project that has been permitted by the state or federal government, a corporation has the ability to sue the community to force its project into the town. There’s no self-government at work here.”
How to Tell If You’re Living in a Binary Crisis (excerpt) The Honest Broker
Imperial Collapse Watch
Asia’s commercial heft helps keep Russia’s war economy going The Economist. Dear Lord. How is it that an imperial hegemon lacks sufficient “economic heft”?
Class Warfare
Tennessee is fastest growing state for labor unions Chattanooga Times Free Press
Can Child Labor Rescue America From Labor Shortages? An Update Confined Space
Report: Arlington’s first guaranteed income pilot boosted quality of life for poorest residents ArlNow
Is capitalism dead? Yanis Varoufakis thinks it is – and he knows who killed it The Fifth Estate
Where Tulpas Come From JSTOR Daily
FAA Aviation Maps Beautiful Public Data. For example:
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
