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Links 12/14/2023

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Herds of Mysterious ‘Glacier Mice’ Baffle Scientists Atlas Obscura

Take an Immersive Journey Through an Ancient Rainforest’s Mycelial Network in ‘Fungi: Web of Life’ Colossal

Things You Don’t See in A Recession Carson Group

Pfizer’s paradox: Albert Bourla walks a fine line as he tries to turn around 2023’s worst-performing big drugmaker Endpoints News. I looked up the collective noun for weasels (cf. “exaltation of larks”), and they’re pretty boring: boogle, confusion, gang, pack, sneak. Perhaps a “bourla of weasels”?

Climate

COP28 climate summit signals the end of fossil fuels — but is it enough? Nature. By Betteridges’s Law….

Figures from the Global Carbon Budget 2023 Robbie Andrew. Many charts, for example:

Russia is an interesting natural experiment. If you really want to reduce emissions, collapse the economy (and crash life expectancy).

How lending-based climate finance is pushing poor countries deeper into debt France24

Never mind politics and partisanship: Climate action is an economic imperative for us all Orlando Sentinel. Great lead: “Irrefutable, undeniable evidence shows climate change is happening, and it’s costing you money.”

Water

Thousands of permits designed to protect Colorado streams are expired Colorado Sun

#COVID19

Anybody who supports the Swedish model should think carefully about the nature and effects of their approach. With subtitles:

Commentary:

* * *

Number of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia nearly doubles in a week Straits Times. No new variants, so it is said.

High fusion and cytopathy of SARS-CoV-2 variant B.1.640.1 Journal of Virology (GM). From the Abstract: “SARS-CoV-2 variants with undetermined properties have emerged intermittently throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Some variants possess unique phenotypes and mutations which allow further characterization of viral evolution and Spike functions. Around 1,100 cases of the B.1.640.1 variant were reported in Africa and Europe between 2021 and 2022, before the expansion of Omicron. Here, we analyzed the biological properties of a B.1.640.1 isolate and its Spike… Altogether, our results highlight the cytopathy [“damages or destroys cells“] of a hyper-fusogenic [“facilitating fusion, especially relating to cells“] SARS-CoV-2 variant, supplanted upon the emergence of Omicron BA.1.” Let ‘er rip!

Study: 4% of US collegiate athletes developed long COVID Center for Infectious Disease and Policy. Probably an undercount, given that administrators (i.e., recruiters) are being interviewed.

China?

Chinese banker jailed for life in US$483 million corruption case, largest ever in country’s history South China Morning. That’s almost real money!

Focus on people not numbers, China told, as it faces unavoidable birth decline Channel News Asia

Why China Is Stepping Up Its Maritime Attacks on the Philippines Foreign Policy

Myanmar

‘Fighting is all around’: Myanmar faces deepening humanitarian crisis Al Jazeera. It’s not a “humanitarian crisis.” It’s a war, an armed popular uprising being the only way to rid Myanmar of the Tatmadaw.

China says peace talks held over north Myanmar conflict, ‘positive results’ Channel News Asia. So China split the Three Brotherhood Alliance (ethnic armed organizations), good job.

Commentary: Vietnam’s ‘bamboo policy’ is an asset as the US, China come calling Channel News Asai

Indonesia calls in army to help farmers plant rice as drought curbs output Channel News Asia

Syraqistan

Israel says it will continue Gaza war ‘with or without international support’ France24

Israel as a Conquering State Bracing Views

* * *

Biden administration staffers hold vigil outside White House, urge Gaza cease-fire Anadolu Agency

US Homeland Security staff accuse leadership of turning ‘blind eye’ to Gaza Al Jazeera

* * *

Israel admits to “immense” amount of “friendly fire” on 7 October Electronic Intifada

‘Israelis don’t see images from Gaza because our journalists are not doing their job’ Haaretz (the newsletter, because Haaretx give me 403s).

Son of the Ghost of Kiev:

* * *

Yikes (1):

Musical interlude.

Yikes (2):

Try watching this with the sound down first. Somebody needs to check in on Harvard….

* * *

Analysis: Is the Houthi threat to world order worse than the war on Gaza? Al Jazeera

By providing a corridor, Armenia can request a road to the Black Sea JAM News

The Revenge Of The Ottoman Empire Gavekal (VS). Well worth a read for some long-awaited, Arrighi-esque historical and economic perspective on multipolarity (in the Fifteenth Century, and now).

What the Ottomans did for science — and science did for the Ottomans Nature

European Disunion

If Hungary blocks EU decision, it will mean Putin vetoed it – Zelenskyy Ukrainska Pravda

New Not-So-Cold War

Zelensky’s fund-raising visit to Washington as seen by Russia Gilbert Doctorow

South of the Border

Industry in Mexico hits its best streak of growth in nearly 10 years Mexico News Daily

Biden Administration

Senate votes to approve mammoth national defense policy bill Scripps. “The legislation is accompanied by an extension of FISA-702, which pertains to a warrantless surveillance program that can keep operating lawfully [sic] until April.”

The GSRA Would Undermine the Utility of FISA Section 702 Just Security. Like that’s a bad thing. The Fourth Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

It’s as plain as day, to anybody not a spook or a spook asset, that “papers, and effects” includes digital communications. Hence Bush’s War on Terror program of warrantless surveillance was felonious, retrospectively legalized, and then normalized by [genuflects] Obama. And now it’s bipartisan! Disgusting and shameful. Commentary:

And:

US agency will not reinstate $900 mln subsidy for SpaceX Starlink unit Reuters

The Supremes

Supreme Court Eyeing Fifth Circuit, But Too Early to Decipher Why Bloomberg Law. Unlocked, oddly.

Antitrust

Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them 404 Media

Supply Chain

The world’s copper supply is suddenly looking scarce Mining.com

Peru’s deadly gold mine attack highlights growing security risk, costs Mining.com

The Bezzle

What Tesla Autopilot does, why it’s being recalled and how the company plans to fix it AP

Driverless cars were the future but now the truth is out: they’re on the road to nowhere Guardian (DL). Unsurprising; see NC here and here. Those two posts are from 2016 (!), so the latest ginormous example of Silicon Valley fraud capital misallocation took at least seven years to play out. Let’s hope AI doesn’t take that long to get sorted.

Digital Watch

Boffins fool AI chatbot into revealing harmful content – with 98 percent success rate The Register

Healthcare

Something for Sleep NEJM. Mercifully, there are still some doctors like this.

Prion Disease Rising in the U.S. MedPage Today

Sports Desk

Turf War Slate. All this organizing work. For pickleball….

Xmas Pre-Game Festivities

How Christmas tree farms can help wildlife NYT

Yuletide owl found roosting in Kentucky family’s Christmas tree for days before being found Fox

This Is What Happens to All the Stuff You Don’t Want The Atlantic

Our Famously Free Press

The web floods Nieman Labs

My First Byline: Francine McKenna (interview) Your First Byline

Class Warfare

Preliminary Data on “Unwinding” Continuous Medicaid Coverage NEJM. “As of early October 2023, about 8.7 million people had lost Medicaid coverage, nearly three quarters (72%) of them for procedural reasons. Extrapolation from the 8.7 million figure suggests that roughly 19 million people could lose Medicaid, similar to the federal government’s higher-end estimate (18.4 million).” Listen, don’t say the Biden Administration never did anything for ya.

All the Carcinogens We Cannot See The New Yorker. We confuse, I’m coming to believe, materiality and visibility.

New Cell Atlases Reveal Untold Variety in the Brain and Beyond Quanta. How little we know….

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

Double-bonus antidote:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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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.

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169 comments

  1. Antifa

    LAZY MINDS
    (melody borrowed from Lazy Bones by Hoagy Carmichael, as performed by Leon Redbone)

    Lazy minds, workin’ in DC
    Doin’ what the One Percent decree
    Ya got ya Ivy League degree
    In the bubble aristocracy

    Lazy minds, flappin’ both your gums
    Can’t see past yourselves when crisis comes
    While ya sittin’ on ya thumbs
    We see what life out here becomes

    We need legislation to repair our nation
    You Nimrods can’t find the time
    For wars overseas you spend all that you please
    Back home we don’t see a dime

    Lazy minds, livin’ off the dole
    Movin’ up the DC totem pole
    Workin’ at that glory hole
    Money is your only goal

    (musical interlude)

    You’re pushing three wars you incompetent whores
    Ya got more targets downrange
    We’re not sheep to fleece, not the planet’s police
    Can we try peace for a change?

    Lazy minds, chasin’ easy cash
    Spoutin’ out a bunch of balderdash
    We’re tired of votin’ for a clown
    It’s time to turn this thing aroun’

  2. Christopher Fay

    I am looking up the term for congress participants. So far I have found “a corruption of congress critters,” “a chicken coop of Congress critters,” and with google “a stage full of performance artists.” Finally this takes it, “a coagulation of bloody hands.”

    I will continue to seek shelter under my pillow and have given up expecting my $600 peace dividend coming in the mail.

    1. griffen

      Your peace time distribution of $600, once upon a time promised from an incoming Democrat President, has been forwarded to the home address of one Mr. Zelensky. I have good information that it has since vanished as if into thin air, but the current media tales are indeed, the Ukraine is on the precipice of defeating Russia so there is that to contemplate.

      He gets the funds, Americans get the lump of coal in our stocking hung by the chimney with care. Thanks for all you do for America, Joe Biden !! ( SARC )

      1. The Rev Kev

        I don’t know if he said it or not personally but the Democrats actually used that promise in their campaigns and had it printed on their posters. I remember seeing images of them online and it said right out that you vote for us and you will get your $600.

        Voters: ‘You lied to us!’

        Democrats: ‘It’s your own fault!’

        Voters: ‘Howso?’

        Democrats: ‘You believed us.’

      2. Polar Socialist

        Dunno, but there’s a video of him promising $2000 checks at a campaign event for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Reverend Rafael Warnock, though.

        “If you send Jon and the Reverend to Washington, those $2,000 checks will go out the door, restoring hope and decency and honor for so many people who are struggling right now,”

          1. ambrit

            Yeah, but then the cheques bounced.
            At least, in the old days, “walking round money” was in cash.
            Our Grifters are just plain dumb nowadays.

            1. Wukchumni

              Half a league, half a league,
              Half a political league onward
              All in the valley of death
              Rode the six hundred clams
              “Forward, the Light Brigade!
              Charge for the guns using a credit card!” he said
              Into the valley of death
              Rode the six hundred clams

      3. KLG

        Yes, indeed. Biden promised $2000 while campaigning for Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia. The checks were $600 light. The missing $600 has been a common theme here. Biden’s minions said the previous $600 was the reason. They just lied. BTW, the likelihood of Biden winning Georgia by a few thousand votes next year is low. Very low.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Here is a great opportunity for Elon Musk. He should ask all those people on his ‘X’-slash-Twitter platform who they would rather listen to more – Megyn Kelly or Taylor Swift. Wait till the “Swifties’ hear about that one. Megyn Kelly will be “Swiftie-Boated” in no time.

    2. notabanker

      Going after the Swifties eh? Good luck with that. A comment in the Israeli genocide thread referenced 41 million Gen Z eligible voters in 2024.

      1. timbers

        My Republican and Trumpian sisters and relatives out west burn over their “tax dollars” going to Ukraine and open borders, and crickets on Israel, while my Gen Z co-workers are indignant over tax dollars going to Israel as she bombs civilians, see Ukraine as a corrupt waste that’s none of our concern, and never bring up immigration.

      2. NotTimothyGeithner

        This is part of the panic. Biden and the Clintonistas may not get it, but the Israeli lobby knows they aren’t making inroads. After that first weekend, all the Israeli sports news was dropped as part of sports coverage. The marketing people know.

        Lorne Michaels even let a sketch through on SNL mocking the college president witch hunt with their next (not established; Chloe Troast) star and that guy hasn’t done anything good since Doug Kenney stopped producing material to steal.

        Sanders is making decent noises after a month of all hail President Biden, so I’m sure the White House is worried they need a sheep dog.

    3. pjay

      One more right-wing “defender of free speech” shows her true colors.

      On the other hand, maybe I’ll become a Swiftie myself now. Very few celebrities are as astute about PR as Taylor Swift, and very few (if any) political lobbies are as good at smearing and destroying reputations as the Israel Lobby. So it will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens next here.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Can you imagine what would happen if Professor Ruth Wisse – the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish at Harvard (see link above) – told all those Gen Z Jewish Americans to immediately stop listening to Taylor Swift and delete her tunes but to instead volunteer three years of their lives for free to be part of the Hasbara network? What’s Yiddish for ‘Aww, hell no!’

        2. John

          I listened to Professor Wisse. Devote three years to Israel? Why? Because Israel? What part of divided loyalties do you not understand Professor?

    5. Wukchumni

      In the 60’s there was definitely a generation gap, my father couldn’t stand the Beatles, and whatever message they had for young adults was tantamount to a dog whistle as far as middle aged adults were concerned.

      It isn’t as if those youth that got older such as me are all that different, I know what Taylor Swift looks like, but that is as far as my knowledge base goes, and i’m probably very atypical of my age group of those approaching geezerhood.

      1. ambrit

        I’ve listened to a couple of her tunes, but discovered that I find it hard, at this late stage in my life, to relate to teenage angst. Curiously enough, the closest parallel from “back in the day” I can come to for Swift and her style of music is Bubblegum.

        1. LifelongLib

          I had the same reaction to the music my son listened to — it was about a different phase of life and I really couldn’t relate to it even if it was ok musically.

          On the other hand, my WW2 vet dad was a ‘folky’ who went to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan concerts, so go figure…

  4. zagonostra

    Max Blumenthal’s Tweet/X of Niko Ostroga reminded me of the following from K.R. Popper’s volume I of The Open Society And Its Enemies where he is quoting from Plato’s Republic:

    It is the business of the rulers of the city, if it is anybody’s to tell lies, deceiving both its enemies and its own citizens for the benefit of the city; and no one else must touch this privilege

    [chapter 8, first paragraph in “Open Society”]

      1. witters

        Do. But know his ‘Plato’ is not Plato. It is Popper who tells the lies there, falsifying ‘quotes’ the least of it. (Wittgenstein got him right – Popper – in my view anyway.)

  5. The Rev Kev

    “Herds of Mysterious ‘Glacier Mice’ Baffle Scientists”

    This is a very misleading title this. When I read it, I had visions of prehistoric mice frozen in glaciers being suddenly released when the ice melted and scampering down mountainsides. It wasn’t that at all. :(

    1. EMC

      I anticipated something about a burgeoning ecosystem at the margins of melting glaciers. Or something like that. There is one. Stupid headline, especially given acknowledging what a bad term it is in the first paragraphs.

    2. t

      Patience is a virtue.

      You will get your glacier mice! It will be a whole Milkshake Duck thing. First we find the unfrozen cavemen mice adorable. And the we get unfrozen caveman diseases and hate them.

      (Autocorrect fought hard to make “virtue” “virus.”)

  6. JW

    ‘Russia is an interesting natural experiment. If you really want to reduce emissions, collapse the economy (and crash life expectancy).’
    That’s the plan isn’t it?

    1. Polar Socialist

      It might be the plan, but I do believe that graph shows Soviet Union before 1991 and Russia after 1991.

      If that is the case, there should be about 39% drop because that much of the Soviet industry was outside of Russia. Just eyeballing the drop in the graph is somewhat over 40%, so that would be a pretty good match. There also was a serious economic downturn (41% of the GDP or so*), but I recall a lot of the industry kept on going, without salaries or even orders, oddly enough.

      * A huge chunk of the “GDP” moved outside of the official statistics, though

    2. The Rev Kev

      The Russians already tried that plan back in the 90s. They said that it didn’t work out so well for them and that after thirty years, they are still recovering.

    4. Henry Moon Pie

      I thought that was a pretty misleading chart. After all, Russians aren’t the #2 consumers behind the U. S. For Russia and China, their carbon footprint comes largely from extraction and production, much of which (still) serves the higher consuming U. S. and EU. It’s consumption that drives production and extraction. (Admittedly, in the land of Bernays, it was the forces of production and extraction that spent much to arrange our culture around consumption, but that die has been cast, and now it’s consumption in the driver’s seat.)

  7. The Rev Kev

    “US agency will not reinstate $900 mln subsidy for SpaceX Starlink unit”

    This is the FCC cutting rural broadband subsidies. So what would happen if Musk said that because of this cut, that he could no longer give the Ukraine coverage for his Starlink services – nor Taiwan either starting next year.

    1. Matthew G. Saroff

      The subsidies should never have been granted. They are intended to pay for infrastructure in underserved, particularly rural communities that are not otherwise served to provide relatively low cost broadband.
      Starlink is none of this. It is not low cost and it does not create infrastructures in the region.
      It should never have been granted in the first place, but that was Ajit Pai.
      Personally, I want the money to go to government owned broadband infrastructure, but I is a bit of a Pinko.

  8. Carla

    I note that both Ohio’s “liberal” Senator Sherrod Brown and “arch-conservative” Senator JD Vance voted “no” on the NDAA that included FISA 702. I wouldn’t think they vote the same way very often, but good for them.

    Fetterman is now beneath contempt as far as I’m concerned.

    The Senate could have stopped this in its tracks. Now it goes to the House where I can’t see Dimocrats ever voting with far-right Repubs to stop the NDAA. And yes, I have called my congress critter Shontel Brown (D-OH) asking her to vote to stop the NDAA. But if she ever votes the way I want, it’s purely accidental. It’s strictly whatever her owners dictate.

    1. undercurrent

      I live in western PA, and heartily agree with you about Fetterman. He’s had the shortest shelf-life of any politician I’ve ever (once) supported, but he’s still for sale, in aisle 666, among all the blue and white Israeli flags, alongside the darling Bibi doll that absolutely lies whenever it’s wound up. And now, I’ll wind down.

      1. The Rev Kev

        Hey, wait a minute. After Russia went into the Ukraine you had everybody putting Ukrainian flags in the social media accounts, planting actual flags out the front of their homes and liberal use of the colours yellow and blue as they were the colours of the Ukrainian flag. It was a way of showing your social credentials. I’m not on social media myself but I don’t think that we are seeing the same with the Israeli flag right now. if that is so, then that is something that is very noteworthy in itself.

          1. Wukchumni

            Walked into a Grocery Outlet in Mammoth last year, and local do-gooders in the foyer were selling yellow & blue frosted cupcakes bisected in the middle, with all the proceeds going to the brave freedom fighters of Ukraine.

            I threw up a little in my mouth, but being a gentleman, swallowed it back down without anybody noticing.

            1. Eclair

              Wuk, you could have pretended the cupcakes were Swedish. At our local Swedish (well, we call it ‘Scandinavian,’ but there are maybe two Norwegians, and no Danes or Icelanders or Finns) Festival this summer, I ordered a big batch of blue and yellow frosted cupcakes from a local baker, to sell with the coffee. I thought they looked revolting (not a big frosting fan,) but they sold out.

    3. ambrit

      To no-one’s surprise, both of our Mississippi Senators, (sounds too much like the late, lamented Washington Senators baseball team,) voted to continue oppressing their constituents.
      “It’s for your own good now! Stop whining! Be good Citizens and perhaps Santa will leave you a shiny new Ukraine Flag under the Christmess tree! You will like that. We know you will, (or we’ll know the reason why!”)

      1. Screwball

        Yes, that seems to be so. I checked the voting record and he is a no. I wonder why the Greenwald Tweet shows him as a “no.” He is my senator too, but I have no use for him, but that’s beside the point. I checked his webpage and it looks like he is even taking credit for helping Ohio.

        Final National Defense Bill Passes Senate, Includes Key Ohio Priorities to Bolster National Security

        The article is from Brown’s webpage;

        WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) announced that the U.S. Senate passed the final version of this year’s bipartisan Fiscal Year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the country’s annual national defense bill, with key Brown-backed provisions that will deliver for Ohio military installations and the communities that support them. This final version of the bill was negotiated with the House of Representatives, and must now pass the House before heading to the president’s desk to be signed into law.

        The annual defense package includes investments Brown secured for Ohio’s military installations, including investments in Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Youngstown Air Reserve Station, Camp Perry Joint Training Center, Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, and Lima’s Joint Systems Manufacturing Center.

        The article is all about war stuff, nothing about the 702. He’s a weaselly little piece of work too.

    5. Buzz Meeks

      Chuck the Schmuck Shummer, Fifth Columnist and Proud Traitor along with Gillibrand both stabbed us in the back. She is now below contempt.

      1. Pat

        She has been following Chuckie’s lead for awhile now. I figure the upstate voters who thought they were getting some representation for a change have figured out she is now an uptown girl.

        (Considering his statement on the intelligence community and his support for every pentagon and intelligence wishlist that whatever they have Schumer is very very good. It isn’t just Wall Street he bends over for.)

        1. Buzz Meeks

          She exposed her real excrementous persona during the 2020 democratic pizzler debate. Before that debate spectacle I thought she was a Hilary twit and afterwards a pathetic bottom of the cesspool hack.

    6. Ed

      Here in western PA, many called out Fetterman as a trust fund, baby and health care insurance fraud long ago. No one was listening. As mayor, he literally walked away when hospital empire UPMC shut down Braddock Hospital costing 300 jobs in an impoverished town. Even his support for fracking, against single payer, and supporting privatization of medicare via Medicare Advantage meant nothing. Hey, man he’s a real “working class hero” they said. Look at how slovenly he dresses. Just like those in flyover country that we know. And wow, how about that big doobie in his Carhartt shirt? Today, he’s upped his right wing game to include genocide and other “liberal” goals like spying on everyone. An empty vessel. Ask for your refund as it will probably get worse.

  10. ambrit

    ” Perhaps a “bourla of weasels”?” Thinking homophoniously, how about “A Bourse of Weasels.”
    Always trading and scheming. Always looking out for “number one.” Always watching for the next big opportunity for personal advancement.
    In a bourse, everything has a price, and it is negotiable. The perfect habitat for ‘weasels.’

      1. ambrit

        Unfortunately, the Bourse is prone to outbreaks of “Dutch Alms Disease.”
        “Your beneficent Overlords take with one hand and receive with the other hand.”

    2. Wukchumni

      Coin shows always had a bourse floor where wheeling & dealing took place, can’t think of really any other venue that used that terminology aside from stock & commodity exchanges.

  12. The Rev Kev

    “Boffins fool AI chatbot into revealing harmful content – with 98 percent success rate”

    Maybe the techies should admit finally that present day AI is in fact not AI at all. Well, maybe a beta version of AI. Actually it is just a beefed up stenography program at the moment. If it was a true AI program then what should happen when a coupla boffins try to “jailbreak” it is for the AI to reply ‘Nice try, pal. Ain’t gunna work though’ – and then it would have a good laugh.

    1. Craig H.

      It is a deluxe web search engine. Google has been using AI from the get go to plow through the massive content of the web. ChatGPT is a little bit more of the same and a financial bubble load of hype loaded onto the top.

    2. digi_owl

      The goal is twofold, first is to suction off all that VC money that is no longer going into “gigs” and crypto. The second, distant, one is to automate away all those pesky desk jobs that are filling up the OPEX side of the spreadsheet.

      2. JM

        That is a moving video and message. I fear people will see it and completely blank the fact that these are people in Gaza, and only feel for the dog and not the people also being subjected to misery.

        1. Janie

          Yes, and spring lasts from April through December, but he makes up for it by being an affectionate companion.

        2. Discouraged in WI

          We used to take our Shepherd out in the backyard early in the spring, and brush with a curry-comb. The hair littered the yard – for a few hours, until the birds building nests picked it all up. They seemed to find it very useful!

      2. Big River Bandido

        I have no canine life partner, RK, but my human one has a full head of thick, heavy hair, and sheds prodigiously as well.

        Small price to pay, in my view. He’s well worth the tradeoff. :-)

      3. Wukchumni

        You couldn’t very well have a German Shepherd as a pet in the UK during World War 1, so they changed the name to Alsatian. There, fixed that.

      4. digi_owl

        Spitzes in general can be real charmers, but some really have too much energy for their own good.

        As i recall, the goal behind the shepherd breed was as a counterpoint to all those small apartment dogs that were popular in the ever more urbanized Europe. That you could have a proper sized dog fit for a urban life.

    3. skippy

      Shepard eyes are like that, my 50kg totally black German Shepard has these huge soulful eyes that he uses to calmly look at me with. The only thing more powerful is my youngest daughters eyes where the falling starts as contact is made with them.

      1. Betty

        My family had German Shepherds. The breed was highly inbred, resulting in hip dysplasia, and constant pain at a relatively young age. I found it heart-breaking for such beautiful and friendly dogs. I thought it was such a cruel practice, and I backed away from ownership when I grew up.

        1. skippy

          Hi Betty …

          Sounds like they might have been slope backs and yes that was done just for show and ends in dyspepsia. That is why my guy is whilst pure breed a straight back, hes old stock before all the other breeding stuff. Fed only the best, level 4 leanness, exercised properly, and given tremendous amounts of love.

          All the vets and others are besotted.

  14. pjay

    Re Professor Ruth Wisse:

    Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Philip Weiss, and others have been eloquent in denouncing the ideological forces that equate “Jewish” with “Zionist.” It’s hard to find a better example than this clip from “the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish at Harvard.” It’s also hard to believe that title is not from The Onion.

    1. pjay

      Re “Somebody needs to check in on Harvard….”

      Don’t worry Lambert, Elise Stefanik and Congressional Republicans are on it! And I’m sure Schumer and the Democrats will make sure they look under every Ivy League rock to make sure they don’t miss anything.

      1. JBird4049

        I have yet to listen to the clip, but I did watch with the sound off, and I can say that whatever her voice sounds like and the words are, Professor Wisse is a seriously angry woman. I do not think there were any throbbing veins in her forehead, but eyesight isn’t too nowadays.

        And while I am all for serving, fighting, and even dying for anything you choose, Israel does have a very powerful, modern army unlike some others.

        1. digi_owl

          Again and again i find myself thinking about some anecdote i read from what i think was British prison warden.

          He claimed working at a men’s prison was preferable, as there fights were straight forward. If two of the prisoners had a disagreement, they would fight it out right on the spot.

          By contrast at a woman’s prison those involved would spend days or even weeks building up alliances while the atmosphere of the whole place soured. And then it would erupt into a full blown riot.

          I can’t help seeing a similar pattern in both national and international politics as we get more and more old crones running around. In particular as they do not have skin in the game should the machinations turn violent.

        2. Kouros

          Because it was only a clip, kind of out of context, I will reserve judgment, because to me it seemed that her anger was at the imposition and the demands from the Israelis on the American Jews.

    2. Henry Moon Pie

      In the early 70s, Peretz and his spouse (the one with the money) were Masters of Currier House on the Radcliffe campus. Peretz drove a Rolls circa “The Yellow Rolls Royce.” That was before he/she bought The New Republic.

      And before he endowed the chair held by Ms. Wisse.

    3. Feral Finster

      So, if opposition to Zionism is prima facie antisemitism, does that mean that all Jews everywhere are responsible for Israel’s crimes?

      Seems like the Zionists are either demanding special pleading (“Israel by definition cannot commit crimes!”) or trying to have it both ways. I mean, if I am opposed to apartheid in South Africa, that doesn’t mean that I hate Boers.

      1. John Zelnicker

        Not In My Name!

        As an old Jewish, antiwar, anti-Zionist, unreconstructed hippie, I reject completely the attempts by Congress and AIPAC to redefine anti-Zionism as antisemitism. They can call me a self-hating Jew or anything else, but I will continue to call out the Israeli government as an apartheid regime committing war crimes and genocide against the Palestinian people.

        Stay safe out there, y’all.

        Edit: I thought this might need review. Apologies to the moderators, but I have very strong feelings about this.

        2. Cristobal

          Words mean what they mean. One cannot legislate a new meaning for a word that is in conflict with the accepted meaning. Red is the new orange? Black is White? How divorced fron reality can you get? This campaign by the genocidal, corrupt, evil (I could go on) Isreili PR machine needs to be universaly ridiculed.

      2. turtle

        I seem to recall that there was an article recently linked here on NC making a similar point. It may have even been a Jewish person making a point that if you intertwine Judaism with the state of Israel so tightly, primarily by saying that any criticism of Israel is a criticism of Jewish people, you put Jewish people in the precarious position of being “responsible” for Israels atrocious policies. Needless to say, this is not a good way to reduce antisemitism around the world.

      3. digi_owl

        Pretty much. Any time anyone is critical of Israel around my parts there will be reports of an angry ambassador claiming it is an attack on all Jews.

        Israel has worked hard ever since its inception to equate itself with the Jewish diaspora.

    4. zagonostra

      The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a measure recently in a 311-14 vote, with 92 Democratic members abstaining by voting “present” that settled the matter, Zionism = Antisemitism.

      So you see, Congress can legislate the meaning of words, you can make black, white, up down, men, women, etc..

  16. flora

    Taibbi and Shellenberger are writing about the Cyber Threat Intellegence (CTI) League. Whitney web has a long backgrounder on CTI on the podcast Last American Vagabond. utube, ~2 hours. The first 20-30 minutes gives a good overview. (Looks like next year could be a doozie. Election year and all./ ;)

    The Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) League And The Impending False Flag – w/ Whitney Webb

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPM5NQS8EBk

  17. Jason Boxman

    From The Revenge Of The Ottoman Empire

    And what occurred in China is now occurring across the broader Eurasian continent. Obviously not at the same pace (no country will ever be able to match China in mobilizing land, labor capital and natural resources towards the delivery of infrastructure) but it is happening nonetheless. Take India as an example. Over the past few years, India has opened 70 new airports and currently has plans to start the construction of another 70. And as more cities start talking directly with each other, this should mean more growth, more productivity and lower prices. Such dynamics bring me back to another staple of Gavekal analytics, namely, the acceleration phenomenon.

    LOL. So that’s gonna be great for climate change, eh? I guess if we’re gonna burn, we might as well be all-in! Capitalism to the end!

    2. Wukchumni

      So in a couple hundred years, does ‘America’ become synonymous with a footstool, like the Ottoman Empire?

      1. ambrit

        Well, to hear our compadres from South of the Border say it, “Americano” is synonymous with “Bad Coffee.”
        “Mi amigo el pendejo se quiere un “Americano” por favor.”

      2. Bugs

        My local patisserie has a lovely 3 chocolate pastry with a white chocolate star on top called l’Amérique. Delicious.

    3. Boomheist

      I found this article fascinating and highly accurate, but also echo Boxman’s note about the article missing in some ways fundamental liquid fuel issues. There is I think a much broader issue raised here concerning a worldwide movement, I think, to bloc-based economic systems, which will favor those blocs that can be relatively self sufficient.

      The Eurasian, former Ottoman, bloc is enormous, and may well contain those elements needed for long term survival – energy resources (Middle East and Central Asia), raw materials, land for farming and food production, and an educated workforce. I think China and Russia have seen this for years, and continue to think that the movement into Ukraine in 2022 and the announcement just before of a China Russia partnership was no coincidence – this was the recognition and announcement that a bloc-based system was being established for the future.

      I would argue that Europe, Africa, and Latin America all lack, for various reasons, the elements for bloc economic success: Europe lacks energy resources and land for sufficient food supplies, for example; Africa lacks a sufficiently skilled and trained workforce, energy supplies, and farmland; Latin America lacks farmland and energy. Africa and Latin America are now being hotly wooed by the Eurasian bloc, China in particular, with some success.

      The other major bloc, of course, that can be self sufficient, is North America: Canada, the United States, Mexico. This region has energy resources, sufficient land for food, and a skilled workforce. As the Eurasian bloc continues to develop and prosper, the North American bloc will be forced to somehow reframe itself as a regional bloc, which will surely change and reduce overall living standard in the short term, but in the end result in a steady form of regional economy coexisting with the Eurasian bloc. The fundamental difference here is that the members of the North American bloc, having been the worldwide leader for decades, will see their standard of living declining, and they won’t like or accept it, whereas the Eurasian bloc members (many more people by the way) will be coming from a place of scarcity and hence feel optimistic and willing to hold off returns in the expectation of a brighter future.

      It all depends, I think, on a few things: how will the North American bloc respond to its loss of worldwide control and shift in living standard? How will the Eurasian bloc find the liquid fuels to support the vast expansion of the energy-intensive development needed to offer members the kind of life they expect? Which bloc will handle the precipitous population declines expected in the coming decades as birth rates continue to fall?

      When we hear people talking of unipolar worlds and multipolar worlds, the unipolar world refers to the Western system of formerly colonial settler expansion from the last 500 years now being isolated and and condemned by the Global South and the multi polar world refers to the emergence of the blocs mentioned above, within which those nations in the Global South see a brighter future.

  18. Amateur Socialist

    Thanks for the pickleball link, it’s wildly popular here in Brattleboro VT. The demographic skews older here like most of the rest of rural vermont. I think the pickleball players chased the very few tennis players away from the public courts years ago.

    But here the controversy has erupted between the older casual players and the highly competitive set. A lot of turf wars between people who want relaxed casual games that are more social against the people who want to play very competitively. It has surprised me how difficult it has been for these two groups to find ways to share the available space.

    1. ambrit

      Similar happenings here in the North American Deep South. Our half-horse town had a small ‘Exercise Complex’ which contained four full size tennis courts. Occasionally the High School tennis team will practice there. The area is being “gentrified” now. The zoo, next door, is being expanded a bit and a water park, (I kid you not,) installed where the Little League baseball field used to be, adjacent to the Zoo. Part of the “upgrade” is that two of the tennis courts were turned into four pickleball courts, (all the courts were refurbished.) A similar ‘competition’ between the casual players and the ‘intense’ players, as you mentioned, happens from time to time. I have seen shouting matches between the “competing interests.”
      Our tax dollars at work.

      1. juno mas

        I can assure you most of your tax dollars do not go to fund Parks & Rec. Dept.
        I live in a town that shares park space/school space and works diligently to provide activities for both youth and adults. It is always underfunded and over-used.

        Fortunately, the municipality has a history of wealthy donors presenting either land or funding to park projects. Parks & Recreation should be viewed as essential infrastructure like roads and basic utilities.

        As for pickle ball: it is more a social endeavor than an athletic one. Change the ball, or the paddle, to reduce the high-pitch sound and you can reduce homeowner complaints. My city requires a pickle ball Pass to use specified tennis courts for the game. Seems to be working.

      2. Joe Renter

        As someone who spent 30 years next to the area where PB started (Bainbridge Island WA) and have played the game for the last 4 years, I have some insight. Fastest growing sport meets big money and demographics are changing the sport. The age groups have worked out a agreement on a lot of courts. Old folks start in the morning. Younger players play in afternoons or at night (if courts are lighted). There are always different levels of play. Ratings for skill levels are like tennis. 2.5 to 5.0 and then pro. A company came up with a different rating system (Dupr) and tried to make money on that system (of course). I have seen lots of injuries on the courts. I have been at the scene where there were two broken legs, numerous pulled hamstrings and pulled calf muscles (I suffered in both areas). One fist fight, lots of paddle throwing, yelling etc. But it’s quite fun and here to stay. Oh, yes the Tennis players are not happy to share the courts and remarking the courts. Two PB courts can fit in one tennis courts. The nets in PB are lower by 2 inches in the middle. If you want to learn more about the sport go over to utubes. People are making bank on their channel just talking about the sport, giving instructions and reviewing paddles. Always got to do the money thing it seems.
        Have fun and know your limits if you are interested in picking it up.

    2. NYMutza

      Fast and furious badminton is more fun than pickleball. A birdie in hand is worth two wiffleballs in the shrubs.

      1. Joe Renter

        Ha. I played the sport for 6 years and have to say it’s one hell of cardio workout.
        I heard that a pro badminton players expends twice the amount of energy than pro tennis players. I think squash (another sport I was into) is a close second.
        Hard to find courts is the big drawback in both sports IMO.

    3. Sub-Boreal

      Not having a dog in this fight, the civil strife over P-ball is quite something to behold. My favourite line in the linked article sums it all up: “Boomers are eating their own”. (I should be able to quote this without fear of cancellation, as a mid-herd boomer (b. 1955).)

      I’m not sure how it eventually played out, but earlier this year a neighbour of a new P-ball court in a Vancouver, BC, suburb started a hunger strike to get some attention to his plight. This even got international coverage.

  19. The Rev Kev

    “Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them”

    I think that that manufacturer had the philosophy of ‘You will own nothing – and be happy.’ They built those trains and sold them but they still wanted control of those trains and so intentionally bricked them. If it goes to trial, maybe they can force those manufacturers to show that code in court to defend it. But it is a really bad idea this of having the ability to brick trains. Suppose that it was black-hat hackers that decided to brick every train in the country for a huge ransom.

    2. JBird4049

      We also discovered an undocumented ‘unlock code’ which you could enter from the train driver’s panel which magically fixed the issue.”

      From the article. Didn’t Boeing also give out incomplete, or at least seriously misleading, documentation on their “fix” for the 737 MAX? It seems to me that what the manufacturers are really saying is that “you will own nothing and be happy—and, if we please, we reserve the right to kill you. Because profit.”

      1. digi_owl

        Seems somewhat different.

        The Polish trains had firmware region locks that made them only serviceable at the facilities of the original producer.

        Boeing on the other hand was trying hard to pass the MAX off as just another 737 variant for regulatory reasons (not need for airlines to retrain pilots etc) and it got people killed.

        The Polish thing is more like the John Deere move where only a certified tech can come out and replace a busted circuit board (pull old one, insert new, reset the error “safety” lock), even if the farmer need the crop in house ASAP before the weather turns.

        1. JBird4049

          Fair point. Maybe I was triggered by seeing another corporation lying so easily and just for some lucre, even if it hurts others.

  21. KD

    Driverless cars were the future but now the truth is out: they’re on the road to nowhere

    Anything but an expert here, but my understanding is that driverless cars are working out well in China, where the cars are all installed with LIDAR:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidar

    Elon refuses to install LIDAR in Tesla’s, which might have been rational when LIDAR was 20K to install, but now runs about $500. I think Volvo, GM, and Mercedes have invested in LIDAR cars, but don’t think any of the LIDAR models have actually come out. GM was supposed to have the “ultra cruise” which employed LIDAR in 2023, but its been delayed.

    The problem isn’t AI, its the sensors, LIDAR gives you a three dimensional view of things, and can effectively see “through” objects. AI is never going to match human capabilities in driving, but it can easily exceed human capabilities in data collection, and make up for it.

      1. Wukchumni

        I used to fly around the world in 80 days in the 80’s, and the only decision you had was what direction, east or west.

        You couldn’t backtrack and had to go that way, and on one trip was in Bangkok circa 1982, and the traffic was nutso even then…

        Pictures from an exhibition:

        I’m in a cab with a buddy and our driver sees that if he goes into the opposing traffic, he can gain one precious car length in heavy traffic, and i’ve never been so close to a head-on collision before or since.

        Motorcyclists would ride on sidewalks if traffic was heavy, saw that happen many times.

        The distance between intersections in Bangkok was more lengthy than I remember just about anywhere else, and I’m trying to jaywalk in-between 2 intersections and give up after 5 minutes and walk to a lit intersection instead.

        LA Traffic was what I thought hectic at times, living in the City of Angles, but it had nothing on Bangkok, my gawd.

        2. Procopius

          LOL. You know you’ve lived in Bangkok too long when you look both ways before crossing the sidewalk.

      2. Keith Newman

        The crazy chaotic driving in Bangkok is peaceful and orderly compared to the driving in Mumbai, India (population 21 million): masses of cars literally 6 inches away from each other constantly converging, diverging and honking to let their 6 inch away neighbours know where they are…
        Good luck with that AI. What a joke.

      3. ambrit

        I remember being in Mexico City traffic once. Once was enough. I’m glad I escaped alive.
        [Ever see someone back up on an Interstate? I did.]

        2. pasha

          I once complained — on this site, I believe — that Houston’s traffic was nearly as bad as Rome’s. I received my comeuppance with the reply, “You’ve obviously never driven in Nairobi!”

    2. Polar Socialist

      Surely the problem is the AI. Or more precisely, the way AI is trained at the moment. We throw as much data as possible to the training network, burn megawatts of energy and yet come up with a model that cannot deal well with input it has not seen before – a.k.a. modern traffic.

      1. Roger

        Thats because human brains are not like computers, and are the product of many hundreds of millions of years of experimentation and weaning out of the failures in both humans and their ancestors (e.g. chimpanzees etc.). Our brains do things easily that computers find hard or impossible, and find hard things that computers find easy. Thats because brains and computers are fundamentally different! The learning ability of a new born baby far, far outstrips that of even the most powerful computer on Earth.

      2. digi_owl

        Or the programmers spent hours upon hours barking up the wrong tree.

        Saw a video of someone testing a Tesla’s collision avoidance system a while back, and the computer spent far too much time trying to id what kind of object was in front of it rather than break or swerve. And invariably it got things all wrong, like confusing a massive wheeled grill for an office chair!

        And that is not the only example. Another glorious one was a Tesla that kept slamming the breaks because the computer kept detecting free floating traffic lights, this thanks to the truck ahead transporting a load of them somewhere. Or similarly confusing a low moon (or sun) for a yellow traffic light.

  22. Carolinian

    A good Gilbert Doctorow.

    By the way, speaking of ad hominem remarks, Russian television has made extensive use of videos from the USA proving, as they say, that “Biden has outlived his brain.’ Their favorite in the past couple of days is a video showing Biden speaking to a small audience in which he says: “after October 7th my father went back to his kibbutz and found that his house had been destroyed.” As Solovyov remarked, no one around Biden seemed to care that he had just spoken an absurdity.

    So reassuring to know that Joe always has the nuclear football a few steps away. Hope that thing has a good lock.

    1. Feral Finster

      See, by pointing out the obvious about Biden’s senility, you are working for Emmanuel Goldstein, I mean Putin!

  23. CA

    China has been employing self-driving taxis and delivery vehicles in a range of cities all through this year, seemingly with complete success so far. Self-driving vehicles run about selected college campuses in China, again with seeming complete success.

    I do not know however why the Chinese efforts have been so fruitful, but obviously the question should be asked.

    2. John k

      Interesting.
      Better software/software writers? Believable, China has 4x us pop, why not better writers? Considering Russia, with less than half us pop and seems to have better military gear, which can’t be because we don’t spend enough.
      Or maybe bad events are not reported?
      Anyway, Tesla has a big operation in China, I would think they’d be all over better self driving softwear..

      1. Roger

        That’s because they control the nature of the environments being used and therefore the number and probability of edge/exception events:

        “The permits will allow Baidu to provide fully driverless robotaxi services in designated areas in Wuhan from 9 am to 5 pm and in Chongqing from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm local time. Service will be limited at first, however, with just five robotaxis operating in each city.”

        https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/08/tech/baidu-robotaxi-permits-china/index.html

        As they remove restrictions, and therefore widen the problem space, they will suffer from the classic problem space explosion of uncontrolled environments. The last 20% of code always takes as long as the first 80% for this reason, in wide open problem spaces it may be more 5% vs 95% – like walking half-way toward a wall each time but never actually getting to the wall.

      2. turtle

        The other possibility is that they just haven’t tested it in difficult enough conditions. I believe that Cruise and Google’s autonomous car division had been successfully testing around Phoenix, AZ for years too, but look what happened when they tried it in San Francisco. I don’t know the details well enough to say if this may indeed by the case, however.

  24. CA

    Why does this appear to be working so well?

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-11-12/Driverless-delivery-vehicles-sweep-2023-Double-11-shopping-festival-1oFkHPdrztm/index.html

    November 12, 2023

    Driverless delivery vehicles sweep 2023 ‘Double 11’ shopping festival

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-28/China-s-Baidu-runs-nighttime-autonomous-cab-service-in-Wuhan-1g8lneb15QI/index.html

    December 28, 2022

    China’s Baidu runs nighttime autonomous cab service in Wuhan

  25. Big River Bandido

    Good morning all, and thanks Lambert for the sad but wise links.

    Fifth Circuit: As I interpret it, Feldman projects the Supreme Court is likely to overturn Fifth Circuit decisions at about the same 74% rate as in recent years (a bit higher than the average of 68% for all circuits). All that seems concrete and well-supported. But his entire discussion of political ideology on the courts was gobbledygook. The metrics for determining whether a circuit was “liberal” vs. “conservative” (whatever those words mean) was the partisan identity of the President that nominated them, and of their home state members of Congress? The flaws in *that* should be readily apparent. A political analysis would have been more meaningful had it delved into actual cases from the Fifth, their content, which ones had been overruled or upheld and why, etc. But at least it’s a good tipoff to pay attention to just what kinds of cases are coming up in the Fifth Circuit.

    The antidotes are heartwarming, and the inspiring video of the splint operation made me teary. German shepherds had a bad rap in the early 70s, possibly due to a spate of bad breeding; the breed was often featured (as a vicious brute) in cop shows. But all the ones I’ve ever encountered have been gentle, affectionate, and highly communicative.

    As for Congress: seems to be no honor whatsoever within it, and its members, controlled as they are by the most depraved people on the planet, are pathetic and contemptible, every last one of them. I’m agnostic, but in case it does any good, may Almighty Dog protect us real people.

  26. JM

    Lambert, the NEJM link has credentials of some sort embedded – it gives a message saying you’re logged in on 3+ machines. You might want to review it and change the link.

  27. communistmole

    News from Germany:

    https://taz.de/Preis-fuer-Journalistin-Masha-Gessen/!5980312/

    Still one more scandal

    The festive Hannah Arendt Prize award ceremony for Masha Gessen was canceled. Gessen compared Gaza to the Nazi ghettos.

    Scandal over the Bremen Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought: Masha Gessen, LGBT* activist, journalist and novelist, will indeed receive it. But in protest against her essay recently published in the New Yorker magazine, the national and local Heinrich Böll Foundations have withdrawn as award sponsors and the Bremen Senate has canceled the ceremony planned for Friday in the town hall.

    The reason: Gessen, born in 1967 to a Jewish family in Moscow, had called in the essay for the Gaza Strip to be recognized with the forced Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe. According to Gessen, only this would provide a language to describe what is currently happening in Gaza: “The ghetto is being liquidated.”

    Instead of facts, usually the strength of her journalistic and fictional works, in the text entitled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” she primarily cites perceived clues for this equation, such as the cramped situation of the residents. However, as Perlentaucher editor Thierry Chervel reminded us, the population density in the Warsaw ghetto was almost 30 times higher than in Gaza.

    Despite the cancellation of the ceremony, the Hannah Arendt Prize Association is sticking to honoring Gessen on Saturday at a symposium, at least in a smaller setting, as a spokesperson emphasized. “The board feels bound by the jury’s decision.”

    The committee, made up of a Polonist, four political and social scientists and former taz editor Klaus Wolschner, announced the decision in the summer – albeit with a view to Gessen’s knowledgeable texts on Russia and Putin’s system of injustice.

    On the social media portal X, Gessen now complained that her texts were being criticized in Germany without consulting her. However, Gessen did not respond to a corresponding query from taz by the editorial deadline.

    1. JBird4049

      I have zero knowledge of Masha Gessen and her writing, but what I know from reading Hannah Arendt’s work, I think that Arendt would agree that what is happening in Gaza is ethnic cleansing.

      As always, one can dance around with facts, but while one can quibble over whether an object is a flat head claw hammer or ball-peen headed hammer, or a shovel instead of a spade, the essential construction and act is the same. Trapped, grossly overcrowded populations that are malnourished, thirsty, with poor medical care, and have been so for years, who are now dying by the hundreds daily. And the Gaza Strip has been among the most densely populated area on the entire Earth for years and before most of the survivors from Gaza City were forced into the southern half of the strip. I guess that would increase the population’s density from ~16,000 per square mile (roughly the same as San Francisco, which is the second most densely populated city in the United States) to over thirty-two thousand per a square mile.

      Again, the details do matter and most of the Jews trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto died at Auschwitz, which itself was not a pure extermination camp like Sobibor, but also a work camp where people were worked to death. More lucrative for the Germans. However, Auschwitz still murdered more than Sobibor. I submit that while technically denying food, water, shelter, and medicine for over two million people much of whom are living in tents, while eating half a meal a day is not genocide, what should I call it? Mowing the grass? Thinning the herd? Again, the debate over the semantics being used is to obscure the truth.

      My revulsion for the apologists of evil, and not just for the Israeli government’s action, increases daily.

  28. Jabura Basaidai

    it would seem the Islamophobic harassment on campus by Eve Gerber, wife of Jason Furman, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School and a former Obama Admin advisor must be a close friend of ex-State Department official Stuart Seldowitz – also from the Obama administration – a coordinated effort, eh – wonder if that harassment will be taken up by Elise Stefanik – pathetic demoncrat –

  29. Ranger Rick

    If FISA 702 keeps getting renewed… why not go after the legal theory that makes it possible in the first place? The Supremes were so hot to overturn judicial overreach in Roe v. Wade, so why not throw out third party doctrine?

  30. Wukchumni

    I see Y$2k is upon us and i’ve made this financial point before-but it bears repeating, seeing as we are repeating what went down in the Roman Empire about 1,800 years ago…

    Ever wonder what that whole alchemy thing was about?

    It only shows up in texts around 200 to 300 AD, which is right at the exact same time that some ingenious Roman figured out how to silver-wash bronze coins to make them look like silver Denarius coins-the very backbone of the Roman economy. ‘Alchemy’ worked for silver, why not gold?

    You might think this near complete debasement of Denarii would have meant curtains for their economy circa 250 AD, but it kept going for much longer, not all that different from the scheme of things here in the USA presently, where the money has been debauched for over half a century.

    Let’s back up a little…

    The Romans had come up with a tri-metallic monetary system, the first ever, and Denarii were 95% silver for about 300 years and you could only debase them so much using bronze before it became the dominant looking metal, along with reducing the weight. They got down to around 50% silver, but that’s as far as they could go.

    The rate of exchange before debasement to virtually no silver content whatsoever was 25 silver Denarii equaled 1 gold Aureus, and it eventually went to around 2,500 Denarii to equal 1 gold Aureus.

    That is precisely where we are right now, a $20 face value gold coin dating from 1850 to 1933 contained just under a troy ounce of pure gold, which is now worth precisely 100x its face value…

    1. skippy

      Trailing indicator of social factors and back in the day one could always steal GDP from others … some call this War …

        1. skippy

          Yes the social factors are always quite similar Wuk, hence the curiosity of why some are want too focus on a trailing indicator, of the aforementioned, and not the actual agency behind it all e.g. gaze at an inanimate object and not the social agency.

          A parallel would be digging down to Clovis Man in North East America and then – stop – and extrapolate everything from there claiming fact/s. All till some intrepid sort digs a bit further and ZOMG Human anthro that predates it and then sum …

          Its almost like some think if you make money X all the other dramas just stop, even when it was like X it did not. That would suggest its just a preference with some wonky moral tails bolted on for good effect.

          1. Wukchumni

            You know its kinda funny, those Native Americans in what is now the USA & Canada had no interest really it seems in all that glitters, compared to South America. Here in Cali 49’ers called a place in Downieville: Tin Cup Diggins, as that’s how much an early prospector could fill up in a day, picking old yeller out of the river.

            Clovis Man & about 666 generations of ancestors couldn’t be bothered in terms of just picking up the largess there for the taking, nor for the most part-the current predecessors, who are cool with digital nuggets, which many eagerly lust over.

            So, we have form.

            1. skippy

              Yes I think its instructive to ponder the effects of the switch between Jade to Gold in South America e.g. was not a popular consensus – elite driven which in turn radically changed religious perceptions to support it.

              Then again one, if folly, can trace gold way back, connections with the Sun and its religious power, blokes on horses from the East dethroning the Moon, and how that echos today …

              BTW be very careful about lumping all of Native Americans into some simple pigeonhole, very robust and vast history thingy, especially from a Classical Western mindset.

              1. Wukchumni

                It’s no simple lumping, i’m unaware of anything the Native Americans utilized it for, and they had no metallurgical skills that i’m aware of.

                It just wasn’t their deal, kinda similar to how crazy Aubugs Indians are compared to Amercians presently, a completely different outlook on #79.

    2. JBird4049

      I think the debasement went along with the collapsing Roman economy. While having funny Denarii was a problem, it was the grabbing of increasing portions of the economy by the rich along with the destruction caused by all those civil wars. The economy stopped making anything except very basic goods for the poor, who were almost everyone, and expensive luxury items for the extremely wealthy oligarchs. Increasingly as well, goods were made locally and not exported or imported as had been normal before the Crisis of the Third Century.

      Then there were all the newly minted emperors minting increasingly garbage money to give all those bribes to the legionaries in the legions that supported them. By the time the crisis ended, all the long distance trade was greatly reduced. You no longer had Egypt making most of the amphorae that was being used in Gaul. Instead, the local Gauls stopped using the cheaper, better quality, mass produced made in Egypt because they could not depend on a steady supply. They started to use their inferior, more expensive amphorae because they could depend on having an inferior amphora if they made it.

      Increasing poor quality goods being made in decreasing amounts being purchased using increasingly debased currency all while armies were wandering around the country destroying people and stuff.

      1. skippy

        Ugh … this all ends up at the end of the day like a recent link that had the old FACTOID about the Romans salting the earth of Carthage, when the entire reason for war with Carthage was for its North African wheat growing regions to feed the legion and by that dint steal others capital/GDP to expand the empire for the glory of its elites … slaves get handed a freedom bingo card …

        But yeah … da monie did it in …

  31. skippy

    What I find curious about the whole Zionism = Antisemitism question is growing up in the U.S. Southwest and Midwest during the 60s/70s was the vast majority of Christians – at the time – viewed historical Israelis as those that basically killed the Son of the Creator[.] Plus a whole lot of other historical baggage.

    This is not to suggest murderous intent, more so frowned upon or socially excluded.

    So after a few decades and all the ME antics over oil, starting with Iran, locals tired of having natural capital looted and treated as domestic labour revolt, necessitating massive PR/marketing campaign to broad brush all regional nations via religion as bad sorts causing all the worlds dramas …. many skippy units later [waves at Lambert] the original view has been flipped on its head.

    Until the point that – any criticism – of Israel today is tantamount to murderous intent. Another thing that befuddles me is this one religious group is a rounding error in the whole of the world population but … seemingly commands so much attention regardless of the plight of all the others in this world …

    Time to workout before work.

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