Yves here. You got more links than usual due so a super-sized Our No Longer Free Press section. Even so, we neglected some topics, so please do not hector us but add those stories as you see fit in comments.
10-foot python found ‘abandoned’ in vehicle, California police say USA Today (Robin K)
Record labels forgot these songs existed. One man rescued them BBC (Kevin W)
The hunter-gatherers of the 21st century who live on the move aeon (Anthony L)
India’s lunar lander unearths evidence the moon once had a magma ocean Washington Post (Robin K)
#COVID-19
Climate/Environment
Gene editors are modifying cow guts to stop their planet-warming burps Washington Post (Dr. Kevin). This seems like overkill. I thought feeding them a certain type of seaweed would do. Is there a scale problem with that?
Texas city flooded with mountain of plastic recycling that hasn’t been touched in a year Daily Mail (Kevin W)
The Coming Pollen Storms Nomea (Micael T)
China?
‘Turn the dial up’: Kevin O’Leary calls for bringing the heat against China to ‘blowtorch temperature’ Fox News (Kevin W). This is not the way a secure or serious country talks.
China Gains Secret Access to Nvdia Microchips by Renting Computers Michael Shedlock (BC)
China slams U.S. for adding firms to export control list over alleged support for Russian military CNBC
China’s ghost stations show a nation haunted by debt The TimesHow China’s growing unemployment has given rise to ‘rotten tail kids’ First Post
Almost 70,000 Japanese people will die alone this year and with the population rapidly aging it could become much worse ABC Australia (Kevin W)
Myanmar
China steps up armed patrols on border as Myanmar conflict deepens Aljazeera
European Disunion
Quite an incredible move in French politics today that might reveal that we're in fact witnessing nothing less than a coup by Macron.
Let me explain 🧵
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) August 24, 2024
And now a communiqué by La France Insoumise ("France's unbowed"), the main political force in the New Popular Front coalition, in reply to Macron's decision.
They announce they're moving ahead with an impeachment procedure against Macron.https://t.co/8Yv7GcU7g2
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) August 26, 2024
Soros pays for the fight against the BSW and ZDF helps Anti-Spiegel (Micael T). BSW = Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance
SJ was destroyed for purely ideological reasons Aftonbladet. Micael T: “SJ = Swedish Railways. Sosse = pejorative for Social Democrats.”
Old Blighty
‘A bad winter would finish me off’: The pensioners facing fuel poverty Independent
The coming collapse of Britain Alex Krainer (Micael T)
The meaning of depoliticisation The Critic (Anthony L)
South of the Border
Quelle surprise:
The United States government declared that it will not comply with the ruling of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice regarding the last elections on July 28, where the victory of Nicolas Maduro as elected president of the country was confirmed.https://t.co/2KxXNvhYzm
— teleSUR English (@telesurenglish) August 25, 2024
Gaza
Ben-Gvir’s call to build synagogue at Al-Aqsa ‘to drag region into religious war’: Palestine Anadolu Agency
Cabinet ministers warn Ben Gvir endangering Israel with ‘reckless’ Temple Mount moves Times of Israel
Patrick Lawrence: “The End of Days” Scheerpost (Anthony L)
* * * Freed Israeli captive Noa Argamani says she was wounded by Israel, not Hamas Middle East Eye (Kevin W)
Jonathan Freedland rewrites history to hide an ugly truth about Israel Jonathan Cook. Kevin W: “The cited link to the Electric Intifada piece: https://electronicintifada.net/content/guardians-zionist-gatekeeper-rewrites-holocaust-history/48441“
New Not-So-Cold War
Russia strikes Ukraine’s power grid in ‘most massive’ attack of war Reuters (Robin K)
Powerful Russian Strikes Usher in Season of Ukrainian Discontent Simplicius
* * * Ukraine conscripts ‘refusing to shoot at Russians and abandoning battlefield’ Irish Star (Li). Means Ukraine is running short of neo-Nazi anti-retreat forces.
Ukraine’s Troop Losses Top 5,800 in Kursk Region Sputnik (Robin K)
* * * Ukraine Develops ‘Its Own’ Cruise Missile Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
Russia claims US preparing to organize ‘color revolution’ in Georgia Anadolu Agency. Not a hard call.
Syraqistan
More than 70 killed in multiple armed attacks in Pakistan’s Balochistan Aljazeera
Imperial Collapse Watch
No, the world isn’t heading toward a new Cold War – it’s closer to the grinding world order collapse of the 1930s The Conversation. Not the sort of thing you expect to read at this venue.
Global race for nuclear weapons at record high, warns UN Financial Times
Trump
RFK Jr., environmental warrior, backs the ‘drill, baby, drill’ ticket Washington Post (Kevin W)
BREAKING: Declassified Susan Rice Email Confirms Michael Flynn Was Personally Targeted In Oval Office Meeting Federalist (Chuck L)
2024
Is this thing on? Harris and Trump battle over hot mics at debate. Politico. I hate to concede that Breitbart has a point: Trump Campaign Opposes Harris’s Attempt to Abruptly Change September 10 Debate Rules. It seems, as Lambert noted, that the Harris and Biden campaign are one in the same when it comes to taking money raised for Biden, but not when the Harris campaign finds it inconvenient. Li adds: “So he can look mean to a woman.”
Democrats sue to block new GOP-backed Georgia election certification rules CNN (Kevin W)
For Over 150 Years, Democratic Party Operatives Have Infiltrated, Coopted and Destroyed Independent Political Movements in the U.S. CovertAction (fk)
Our No Longer Free Press
US orchestrated Durov arrest – former spokesman RT
Informative:
Just got booted from the @MarioNawfal space so I’m gonna speak my peace here: what’s behind today’s arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov pic.twitter.com/FexLvJZK92
— Mike Benz (@MikeBenzCyber) August 25, 2024
“#FreePavel”: Telegram CEO Becomes Latest Target of European Censors Jonathan Turley
Alex Christoforu argues with some detail that the action against Durov was likely also against Telegram’s coin and payment platform: Telegram Durov arrested as plane lands in France. Zakharova, NGO hypocrisy. Starmer Ukraine video YouTube
It seems you're lying through your teeth
The investigation came from OFMIN, an office created less than a year ago
And which reports through your executive branchhttps://t.co/bhoWxjZuhS
— Shaun Maguire (@shaunmmaguire) August 26, 2024
The CEO of Rumble has fled Europe after the arrest of Pavel Durov as France also threatens their platform pic.twitter.com/GYTqatBbHl
— Glenn Diesen (@Glenn_Diesen) August 25, 2024
* * * Mark Zuckerberg Says White House Was ‘Wrong’ to Pressure Facebook on Covid Wall Street Journal (BC)
Mark Zuckerberg just admitted three things:
1. Biden-Harris Admin "pressured" Facebook to censor Americans.
2. Facebook censored Americans.
3. Facebook throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Big win for free speech. pic.twitter.com/ALlbZd9l6K
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) August 26, 2024
Woke Watch
When a Department Self-Destructs Chronicle of Higher Education (Anthony L)
Falling Apart Boeing Airplanes
Two days that led to Boeing’s near midair disaster Seattle Times (Kevin W)
NASA Decides to Bring Starliner Spacecraft Back to Earth Without Crew NASA (Kevin W)
Big Cannabis behaving like Big Tobacco Anandamide
Post-pandemic global supply chain turmoil might still ruin Christmas South China Morning Post
The Bezzle
‘Don’t Trust Google for Customer Service Numbers. It Might Be a Scam.’ Washington Post
Sam Bankman-Fried Didn’t Have ‘Character of a Thief’, Argues Author Michael Lewis Decrypt. Hoo boy.
Class Warfare
NYC public hospital doctors ordered to shorten appointments to see more patients Gothamist (Dr. Kevin)
‘Barely surviving’: Some flight attendants are facing homelessness and hunger Yahoo! News (Kevin W)
The thing that will surprise a lot of people is how low Intel pay is in the USA. Hacker News (Paul R)
“Proving them wrong”: After raising minimum wage, California has more fast-food jobs than ever Salon (Kevin W)
Antidote du jour (Cheryl K):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
Once in a lifetime shot. Park ranger uses a shotgun to separate (and save) two antler locked bucks pic.twitter.com/gAB2WWdwsR
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) August 23, 2024
A second bonus:
So relatable 🤗 pic.twitter.com/2eNrLiggr5
— Cats That Heal Your Depression (@Catshealdeprsn) August 27, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
ORANGE
Nothing rhymes with orange!
No, it doesn’t either
That rhyme cannot adorn your verse
What say we take a breather?
No word to rhyme with orange?!
That’s not your job—you know it
It’s 4 AM by candlelight
You sure you are a poet?
But rappers rhyme with orange!
They make up words to fit
They rush and crush whole syllables
To hurry through their skit
So who invented orange?
The Tamil folk of Inja
It spread to Rome to France to England
Snuck in like a ninja
For sure no rhyme for orange?
There isn’t—there’s no way
The sun lights the horizon—
Can we please please hit the hay?
“Ukraine calls on Belarus to pull back forces from border”
‘Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Aug. 18 that Ukraine had stationed more than 120,000 troops at the border with Belarus, and deployed nearly a third of its armed forces along the entire border.’
This being the case and after what happened at Kursk, why would Belarus trust the Ukrainians not to do something stupid to widen the war? Maybe make an incursion into Belarus and seek to have countries like Poland come to the Ukraine’s aid. After all, Israel is thinking about invading Lebanon to widen the war so that the US/UK & France will come to their aid. Desperate countries often do stupid things.
Re Antidote de jour
Is that a Western Politician? A booby? Todays headlines could be summarised as: The West is sliding down the crapper; the ROTW are winning bigly. God, I love fresh schadenfreud in the morning. So good, thanks!
Where I live the health care providers shortened appointment times to 20 Minuit 3 years ago. It happened when the two health care systems bought out all of the private practices. There are no independent providers. They are all employees of the two corporations. It has resulted in many older providers retiring and younger ones moving on to greener pastures.
A local doctor told me that he had to fire one of his insurers due to the shortened appointments. He said that there was no way to practice medicine when told to allow only six minutes per patient. Other insurers had not yet begun that downward spiral, only 22 short years ago.
Now it can seem a luxury to have a doctor listen and review thoroughly with less pressure to diagnose according to a reimbursement coding schedule. The Hippocratic Oath can live on.
re: Gene editors are modifying cow guts …
It might be more cost-effective to permanently edit the cow genome than to be harvesting seaweed, then shipping it to where the cows are …
More money to be made from a patented gene than from seaweed.
Income streams starting with the accompanying vet visits to check on and update Bessie’s shots. Which politicians will ruminate on the potential side effects?
I find this, like most national elections, very hard to take seriously. The media, who really seems to be focused more on clickbait, eyeballs and sideshow stories (i.e., making money as opposed to journalism) continues the endless churn of stories and headlines about stuff that doesn’t matter. Take for example the current kerfuffle over debate rules. It fits perfectly. They can breathlessly talk about it for a day or two then move on to the next story that threatens democracy and the planet as we know it. Meanwhile, the vast percentage of citizens aren’t paying any attention, they actually have lives to lead, and the debate will happen and no one will care or remember this story.
Of course, the bigger story is that on the positive the neoliberal consensus is toast, and not just in the US, no matter how hard both parties try to keep it on life support. One could argue that what Trump has done is advance the Republican Party to something new much faster than the Democrats, even if stylistically he is not really focused on a replacement and building a coalition that can run for several decades.
Many years ago there was alined article on NC about how the consensus comes about and a number of variables that once satisfied signifies a “revolution”. It defined revolution as a change in the prevailing way we organize society. We satisfied all the conditions something like twenty years again. They point out that you cannot determine in advance the trigger that will cause the change, whether it will be peaceful or violent, and whether the new principles will come from the left or right. It really strikes me that that is where most of the West is now. (Neoliberalism replaced the New Deal coalition, etc.) I have searched for the article and, of course, can’t find it. But it does seem to explain well what we are seeing.
‘Nature is Amazing ☘️
@AMAZlNGNATURE
Once in a lifetime shot. Park ranger uses a shotgun to separate (and save) two antler locked bucks’
What else can you say?
‘That’s good shootin’, Tex.’
Although he has ruined the mating chances of the buck whose anters were blown off.
No wonder no one believes the WP
Last year the US produced the most oil and gas in its history according to every metric I could find.
Hard to believe a Trump could out drill what’s been happening.
which is why US natgas is <$2, and ironically the unsung *linchpin* as why inflation has been relatively reined-in since 2022.
but natgas is is too important and useful a resource to sell @<$3.50 (feedstock, heating, etc)
There will be a reckoning when the US wells start ageing out and the US will have no more road to kick the can upon.
Jimmy Dore said years ago that when the Washington Post talks of how ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’, that that is not a motto but a mission statement.
“‘A bad winter would finish me off’: The pensioners facing fuel poverty”
Now here is a scenario to think about. As soon as Keir Starmer took power, he announced that his first priority was the Ukraine. Now the past day or so the Russians have been hammering a lot of what is left of the electrical grid which means that the Ukrainians are in for a freezing cold winter this year. So what happens if in December, Starmer announces that the UK will be sending billions of pounds worth of heating equipment, blankets and oil heaters with supplies of oil for the poor people of the Ukraine? I could very easily see this happen.
And his second priority is ensuring Israel is able to continue to ‘defend’ itself. Starmer recently claimed he will need 10 years to turn Britain around. That pressupposes Labour will win the next election within the next 5 years. The way he is going that will never happen. Farage must be rubbing his hand with glee.
England gets its turn in the barrel, now becoming the latest
sickfreezing man of Europe. When 25% are reported as likely being heating-insecure this winter there will be stiff upper lips and more to consider. Parliament and Downing Street seem to be reduced to reactive policies that amount to whistling past the icy graveyard of Empire.“Access to” healthcare is being redefined. I have become used to a waiting period of 8 months to see a specialist MD. Now I hear from my grown kids on the east coast US that you can’t easily see an MD for your PCP (primary care physician) in their area of New England. To see an MD for PCP you wait one year. To see a PA (physician’s assistant) you wait 6 months. So one of my kids sees an RN regularly as their “PCP.” The other one just goes to an urgicare for anything that comes up. This is shocking to me as they live in major cities known for their prestigious hospitals.
I realize some medical staff took early retirement since the beginning of Covid, but this seems like a huge change. I live in the MidWest and can still get an appointment with my MD PCP about 2-7 days ahead. What has happened in the greater Boston area? Is this common where you live?