What happened when the moon ‘turned itself inside out’ billions of years ago? Space.com

Trying to Puzzle Through the Current Macro Situation (excerpt) Brad DeLong’s Grasping Reality

Jerome H Powell: Opening remarks – Stanford Business, Government, and Society Forum (PDF) Bank of International Settlements

Climate

Farmers warn ‘crisis is building’ as record rainfall drastically reduces UK food production Guardian

How Climate Change Will Affect Conflict and U.S. Military Operations RAND

A Tidal Wetland Restoration of Epic Proportions Reasons to be Cheerful

Pandemics

The largest fresh egg producer in the US has found bird flu in chickens at a Texas plant CBS

Deconstructing the Avian Flu Contagion Live

China?

No Substitute for Victory Foreign Affairs. Let me know how that works out.

Yellen Junks 200 Years of Economics to Block China Clean Tech Bloomberg. The theory of comparative advantage, tossed aside.

Yellen Dispatched to Beg China for Face-Saving Slowdown Simplicius the Thinker(s)

As China’s economy falters, so does middle-class confidence NBC

South China Sea: Philippines’ Marcos ‘horrified’ by Xi-Duterte ‘gentleman’s agreement’ for status quo in disputed waters South China Morning Post

‘The rule of law says that the islands are Chinese’ Global Times

No problem that can’t be talked through, President Xi Jinping tells Taiwan’s Ma Ying-jeou in historic Beijing talks South China Morning Post

Let’s not give China ideas:

Unless they’ve already had them, of course.

First non-American on the Moon will be a Japanese astronaut, says Biden France24. So the vassal state ranking would be: Japan, UK, Germany… Ukraine…

Myanmar

Chevron Exits Myanmar With Withdrawal From Natural Gas Project Wall Street Journal

Myanmar troops retreat as rebels declare control over key border town Channel News Asia

Vietnam Tycoon Lan Sentenced to Death Over $12 Billion Fraud Bloomberg. Vietnam doesn’t [family blog] around!

The Koreas

Yoon Suk Yeol: Was South Korea’s president thwarted by a spring onion? BBC

Syraqistan

Biden Administration Fears Iran Might Target U.S. Forces Over Israel Strike The Intercept

Biden vows ‘ironclad’ support for Israel amid Iran attack fears BBC

Nuclear deal in tatters, Iran edges close to weapons capability WaPo

Dozens of Christians arrested after shutting down Senate lunch in protest of Gaza famine Religion News Service

The Exchange Rate On Palestinian Life The Defector

Has Hamas Won? Haaretz. Commentary:

Economic Bleeding: The Hidden Cost of Israel’s Military Strategy Elijah J. Magnier

Samsung Next shutting down Israel operations Ctech

How the Paraglider Left Hurts Palestine Compass

The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth Andreas Malm, Verso

European Disunion

Greek Solution: Greece’s far right gathers steam before EU elections France24

Dear Old Blighty

The Guardian agrees: Labour’s tax problems can’t be solved by a cosy coterie of old insiders Funding the Future

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia-Ukraine war: ‘They aren’t ready to die’ – the smuggler charging thousands to escape army conscription Sky News

Outcry in Ukraine after Kyiv scraps demobilisation plan for long-serving soldiers Guardian

US and Russia need to reestablish Cold War playbook to avert nuclear escalation, senior general says Stars and Stripes

Ukrainian official ups urgency for more weapons: ‘Nice and quiet diplomacy didn’t work’ The Hill

No news is good news… Gilbert Doctorow

Is the Kremlin Overconfident About Russia’s Economic Stability? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Russia accuses Ukrainian oil and gas company where Biden’s son used to work of funding terrorist attacks Ukrainska Pravda. Commentary:

Global Elections

Bollywood makes a song and dance for Modi ahead of Indian elections France24

Biden Administration

Surveillance bill implodes amid GOP infighting in latest blow to Johnson Politico. And all because those pesky right wing knuckledraggers think the spooks need warrants to search your electronic communications (“the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…”).

Biden administration sets first-ever limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water AP. Now do indoor air.

How Biden’s New Clean Air Rules Helps UAW Drive at VW Payday Report

Antitrust

Do We Really Want a Food Cartel? The Atlantic

Is Techno-Monopoly Inevitable? Project Syndicate

MMT

Economic Democracy with Pavlina Tcherneva (transcript) MR Online

Digital Watch

Inside the ‘Com World War’: Robberies, Brickings, and ‘Drama’ 404 Media

Assange

Biden Is ‘Considering’ Dropping Assange Case Consortium News

Sports Desk

Track and field becomes first sport to pay prize money at Olympics Al Jazeera

Zeitgeist Watch

The Dumbphone Boom Is Real The New Yorker

Supply Chain

Industrial metal prices jump as investors bet on rising China demand FT

Former YDC Worker Feared ‘Rape or Worse’ for Complaining About Kids’ Abuse New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism

Imperial Collapse Watch

Where Is America’s ‘Rules-Based Order’ Now? Spencer Ackerman, NYT

The Plight of DEI Leaders — Heavy Expectations and Limited Protection NEJM. Why should I “listen to Black women” in health care who are not advancing single payer? Commentary:

Class Warfare

Finland Rattled by Political Strikes Against the Conservative Governments’ Anti-Union Agenda On Labor

Older Floridians are going back to work as life gets less affordable Orlando Sentinel

US workers increasingly more detached from their employers: Gallup The Hill

Aging adults stay home more, socialize less than pre-pandemic (press release) University of Colorado

Chasing the dark Lyz Lenz, Men Yell at Me

Antidote du jour (via):

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.