Scientists Release an Astounding, Detailed Map of a Fly Brain in Groundbreaking Study Colossal
Mass extinctions on Earth can help us find alien life in the cosmos. Here’s how Space.com
Climate
How climate risk will complicate central bankers’ jobs FT
U.S. enacts law to exempt select fabs from environmental reviews Tom’s Hardware
Residents File Class Action Lawsuit Against BioLab for Toxic Plume 404 Media
Southern California study shows extensive exposure to toxic airborne plasticizers The Hill
75,000 – 80,000 birds dead from botulism near Oregon border FOX 12
Hurricane Helene
‘Civilization is pretty much gone’ after Helene tears through Spruce Pine, NC News & Observer
Mayorkas warns FEMA doesn’t have enough funding to last through hurricane season AP
North Carolina Asks Zelensky For $100 Billion In U.S. Funding Babylon Bee
Syndemics
Water
Before Brita: A Brief History of Water Filtration JSTOR Daily
China?
Foreign investors ‘seek shelter’ in undervalued Chinese assets, but scepticism remains South China Morning Post
A stimulus is good, but China still faces a hard slog Channel News Asia
Vietnam plans US$67 billion high-speed railway with no foreign capital Channel News Asia
Japan’s Rice Farmers Planting More Heat-Resistant Varieties Nippon.com
India
A Durga Puja Like No Other: R.G. Kar Protests Cast Shadow over Festivities in Kolkata The Wire
UK cedes Chagos Islands to Mauritius in deal securing Diego Garcia military base France24
Syraqistan
Iran, Saudi Arabia vow to resolve differences, boost ties Xinhua. “The Saudi minister voiced his country’s determination to develop relations with Iran. ‘We seek to close the page of differences between the two countries forever and work towards the resolution of our issues and expansion of our relations like two friendly and brotherly states,’ he said.” Big if true.
Scores of illegal Israeli settlers storm Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque amid tension Anadolu Agency
* * * Massive blasts in Beirut after renewed Israeli air strikes BBC
Radar shows scale of damage from Israeli strikes on Lebanon FT
Why Could Lebanon Be Rich, but Is so Chaotic? Tomas Pueyo, Uncharted Territories
* * * Netanyahu’s high-stakes gamble against Iran and Biden confronts the limits of his influence over Israel Politico
Clarity After Iran Strike, as Israel Tries to Pivot to Nuclear Arc Simplicius, Simplicius the Thinker
Can Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities by itself? FT. The deck: “Without US support, analysts believe the Israeli air force will struggle to mount a successful operation.”
* * * Houthis’ email alert to Red Sea ships: Prepare for attack, with best regards Reuters. Commentary:
Extraordinary number of ships at #singapore. All bunched up here because of Red Sea disruption to shipping and shifts in way things are being shipped. Fascinating. This is where commerce and geo politics come face to face pic.twitter.com/7sCRdW9YPk
— Richard Quest (@richardquest) October 3, 2024
* * * A debate with John Mearsheimer about the US-Israeli relationship via ‘Judging Freedom’ Gilbert Doctorow
Israel’s Oct. 7 Early Warning Failure: Who Is to Blame? War on the Rocks
European Disunion
EU sues Hungary for criminalising groups that receive foreign funding, including NGOs France24
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine’s top commander orders defences bolstered in the east after Vuhledar falls Reuters
Diplomacy Watch: Russia capitalizing on battlefield surge Responsible Statecraft
Ukraine negotiates nuclear plant protection with UN atomic watchdog observers Euractiv
Ukraine gives the US a sweet deal with one dead Russian soldier for every $20,000 spent on drones, unit commander says Business Insider
The Russian Military Will Be ‘Battle-Hardened’ After Ukraine War The National Interest
South of the Border
Reinventing Mexican Conservatism The Baffler
Biden Administration
An Exodus of Agents Left the Secret Service Unprepared for 2024 NYT
John Deere accused of being full of manure with its right-to-repair promises The Register
2024
Prosecutors request indefinite delay in trial for Trump assassination attempt suspect Ryan Routh FOX
Realignment and Legitimacy
Citizens’ Assemblies in Michigan and Beyond Crooked Timber
Antitrust
Michael Jordan, Anti-Monopolist Matt Stoller, BIG
Digital Watch
Supply Chain
Geopolitical concerns ‘very serious’: Bank of England warns of Middle East oil shock risk Anadolu Agency
World Wide Waves: an interview with Laleh Khalili The New Inquiry
Sports Desk
Class Warfare
Dockworkers’ union suspends strike until Jan. 15 to allow time to negotiate new contract AP. Commentary:
Interesting Discovery short video showing the fully automated Rotterdam port operation.
It’s the largest seaport in Europe and 10th in world for cargo tonnage (was #1 between 1962 and 2004, since overtaken by Chinese ports)
It's operated by <20 people onsite and works by:… pic.twitter.com/Ph2Fb0ghW0
— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) October 3, 2024
Biden declares ‘collective bargaining works’ after deal struck The Hill
* * * UAW Reformers Muster Forces to Hold Bosses to Their Word Labor Notes
* * * Can Social Democracy Win Again? Boston Review
The Peanut That Broke The Law nonsite.org
In American Empire, You’re Either Invading or Being Invaded Literary Hub
Richard III, the Tudor Myth, and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism MR Online
Victim’s Unsealed Testimony Reveals New Details in Epstein Case NYT
Antidote du jour (Oilstreet):
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
HURRICANE HELENE
(melody borrowed from The Battle of New Orleans by James Harris, as performed by Johnny Horton, 1961)
I hopped in my Cadillac to take a little trip
Headin’ down to Florida to have a skinny dip
I haven’t seen the ocean there since I was just a teen
And I had to see this Hurricane that people call Helene
The rain beat down on the roof—it was a drummin’
The highway started floodin’ traffic moving pretty slow
I played some tunes I’s singin’ I was hummin’
Thinkin’ ’bout the people in a town I used to know
I picked up a fella who was holdin’ out his thumb
Said Louisiana was the place he hails from
Worked up in Chicago where he didn’t earn a thing
He’s headin’ where the water’s warm to wait until the spring
Where I grew up it was always bright and sunny
South of Tallahassee where it doesn’t ever snow
We fished a bit to earn some pocket money
Where I grew up that was all you had to know
By trickery and little bit of clever lies
I joined the Marine Corps with a bunch of younger guys
We went to Vietnam—there’s some stories we could tell
When me and all my buddies we got introduced to
Well, the rain came down but the Cadillac was runnin’
I’ve heard of Ford’s and Chevy’s but that’s nuthin’ I would know
It’s got big fins, the leather seats are stunning
I only have to whistle and the ladies want to go
Yeah we checked on our tires ’cause the road was a shambles
While the wind came in whooshes with the lightnin’ bolts aglow
They hit so close we could reach out and snatch ’em
Mother Nature busy out there puttin’ on a show
We bought another bottle in a sleepy Georgia town
Every store was boarded up, the place was tumble down
Graffiti covered every wall, the people were resigned
We left that town to zombies who were stoned outta their minds
We reached the Gulf it was like the Second Coming
The beach was underwater and the waves began to grow
The engine died—the Caddy wasn’t runnin’
I lost my purple Caddy to the Gulf of Mexico
Yeah, the sign said no fires and the surge stole our sandals
As Helene came ashore on that archipelago
Her eye came past as the waves came a crashin’
We met her on a roof while we was singin’ zydeco
Waves climbed that shore
Late night dance floor
Helene Cat Four
Wild men want more
“Ukraine negotiates nuclear plant protection with UN atomic watchdog observers”
Does the Ukraine really want to bother having foreign observers from the IAEA near its nuclear power plants to protect the country’s energy supply? The Russians have them at the Zaporizhzhia and Kursk nuclear power plants but whenever the Ukrainians attack them, the IAEA inspectors just can’t work out where those drones and artillery barrages are coming from. I’m thinking that IAEA inspectors are in reality a jobs program for the Braille Institute.
The un, of limited use before the twin wars, is now quite useless. Perhaps there will be a BRICS un by and by to represent the 7/8th not in the golden billion.
They need foreign observers from the IAEA for the incoming false flag attacks.
>Scientists Release an Astounding, Detailed Map of a Fly Brain in Groundbreaking Study Colossal
Maybe they can map Biden and Trump next, though it might not be as “groundbreaking”
You would think they would start out small, on Trump or Biden before tackling a fruit fly.
No, that wouldn’t be groundbreaking, just an instance of logical positivist science in practice, i.e. verification or reproduction of a fact.
>Vietnam plans US$67 billion high-speed railway with no foreign capital Channel News Asia
So a country we tried to bomb back to the stone age will have high speed rail before the US, And, I think Ethiopia also has a high speed rail project in collaboration with China underway. Nice…
Iran, Saudi Arabia vow to resolve differences, boost ties – Xinhua “Big if true.”
Indeed…if true.
I’ve had a BOLO for more info about some of not-so-usual suspects relations with Israel.
Below is one of the first articles I’ve read that gives an outline of BRICS+ countries’ economic (and other) relationships with Israel.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/10/03/the-blessing-for-genocide-nearly-all-brics-regimes-nurture-israel-economically/
US strategy, most US don’t recognize, has been to use the Sunni to run down Shi’a Iran, and the Shi’a majority in Iraq.
Abraham Accords were an inch stone on the US siding more openly with the Sunni.
Demise of neocon fantasy alert!
The countries discussed in the outline/overview are not all in the Mid-East.
>Victim’s Unsealed Testimony Reveals New Details in Epstein Case NYT
Jane Doe 1 said…
Tired of reports on what “Jane Doe” had to say. I want the list of Epstein clients/blackmail targets. Ok, this is the NYT, I understand but, Mossad and Israel was mentioned once? Not even in passing.
I think Whitney Webb’s “One Nation under Blackmail” is of more public interest/weight than one victim’s personnel viewpoint of sexual abuse, though I’m not minimizing it. The whole Epstein sexual aspect/focus is intended, I think, to misdirect from the real underlying nexus that exist between politicians/intelligence agencies/MSM and various other power brokers in that nefarious satanic “inner circle.”
Re; Gilbert Doctorow’s, A debate with John Mearsheimer about the US-Israeli relationship via ‘Judging Freedom’
Doctorow argues the it is the US that is manipulating Israel, using Israel to fight its wars, and not the other way around.
Would Doctorow then agree that Netanyaho is a cat’s paw of US military-industrial interests? By extension, APAIC?
A lot of money has been made since 9/11, and I’m sure that there are some who wish to see these wars, and the cash-flow they bring, continue.
Where I disagree with Doctorow is that while he seems to feel that the current US proxy-wars are motivated by vengance, I believe that these are simply the result of cold-blooded calculations, developing and taking advantage of opportunities as they arise.
I think it’s a bit more complex than one side controlling the other. There are important trade offs.
Israel does serve as a valuable proxy for the US while allowing for plausible deniability to pursue some actions that the US can’t/won’t do itself. That’s beneficial to the US national interests.
On the other hand Israel sometimes does reckless stuff that harm the American position in the ME and around the world while also consuming a lot of military resources.
There’s also the whole AIPAC/MIC/giant piles of money aspect, so that probably helps convince some people that supporting Israel is good business.
Israel is a land based aircraft carrier. The object is bases ringing Iran in Syria and Iraq!
To “do Iran” requires larger/as diverse air power than lost in Vietnam!
Which was absent in Ukraine!
> it is the US that is manipulating Israel, using Israel to fight its wars, and not the other way around
this is also Brian Berletic’s view, for example articulated recently here. BB cites multiple examples of US employment of proxies to undertake conflicts of varying “temperature” with adversaries (Ukraine vs RF, Taiwan and Philippines vs PRC).
It seems inarguable that in the case of Israel vs parts of the Middle East, the proxy has much more influence in US than is the case in the other examples BB cites. Things may have started out the way GD sees them, but have evolved since then.
‘Rotterdam’s automated port took away traditional dock jobs but new ones are required including’
It has not escaped my notice that the jobs lost were ones that ordinary people were performing while the new jobs are really just ones in the IT industry. It’s like AI. People say that although huge amounts of jobs will be lost as AI replaces them, this will be balanced by all the new jobs created – like AI trainers, auditors, governance & review people, AI scouts, security engineers, and entrepreneurs – which all happen to be jobs that serve AI.
Does anyone else find the premise behind the Business Insider article about cheap drones and Russian deaths crass and revolting?
This goes back years. When the Russians intervened in the destruction of Syria, US officials were boasting how they would have Russians go home in body bags and in the present war people like Lindsey Graham talk about what a bargain it is in how many Russians are being killed for only a tiny bit of the US budget. Good thing that when this war is over, Russia will never seek any payback.
Here’s another from BI to think about– not necessarily the content, just the photo they used for this story:
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-boost-economy-stock-market-bazooka-stimulus-sentiment-rally-pboc-2024-9
To me, it seems pretty clear what message they’re trying to convey.
And to answer your question, I find that just about everything the west is doing in these wars to be crass and revolting.
They diss with the pic and then the actual article describes policies in China that are recognizable to the USA. In many respects, but not all, right out of the US economic playbook.
“State media China Securities Journal explained the thinking behind the move in an editorial on Monday
“The capital market is not only a ‘barometer’ of the macroeconomy, but also a ‘thermometer’ of investor sentiment,” said the editorial, which acknowledged the vicious cycle of negative feedback between the stock markets and economic sentiment.
“Boosting the capital market is an important breakthrough in strengthening confidence. An active stock market and improved investor confidence will improve expectations for economic development,” the media outlet wrote.
Even accepting the premise, the math is off.
Assuming 100k Russian KIA (which seems reasonable enough) and around 200 billion in US funding, it’s around 2 million per KIA. Quite a bit more than the claimed 20k.
Doesn’t include European funding or stuff that isn’t public.
Yes.
US has only terror in its magazine.
Re. Diego Garcia
Will Britons now rest easier, knowing that by securing a 99-year lease on Diego Garcia, the Starmer government has “shut down any possibility of the Indian Ocean being used as a dangerous illegal migration route to the U.K.”?
I know I will. Think how many people have died on small boats crossing the English Channel. The death toll must be even higher when these boats are setting off from the Indian Ocean.
https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1842061280146018674
Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand
Everyone should read this letter that 99 American healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza wrote to Biden, since, as they write they’re “among the only neutral observers who have been permitted to enter the Gaza Strip since October 7”:
https://gazahealthcareletters.org/usa-letter-oct-2-2024
You cannot read their letter and not conclude a genocide is indeed taking place, their observations are beyond horrifying:
– They estimate, with evidence, that “the death toll is already greater than 118,908, an astonishing 5.4% of Gaza’s population”
– They write that “with only marginal exceptions, ‘everyone’ in Gaza is sick, injured, or both. This includes every national aid worker, every international volunteer, and probably every Israeli hostage: every man, woman, and child.”
– Children routinely shot in the head or chest: “Every one of us who worked in an emergency, intensive care, or surgical setting treated pre-teen children who were shot in the head or chest on a regular or even a daily basis. It is impossible that such widespread shooting of young children throughout Gaza, sustained over the course of an entire year, is accidental or unknown to the highest Israeli civilian and military authorities.”
– Healthcare system systematically targeted: “Israel has destroyed more than half of Gaza’s healthcare resources and has killed nearly one thousand Palestinian healthcare workers… We quickly learned that our Palestinian healthcare colleagues were among the most traumatized people in Gaza, and perhaps in the entire world… All were acutely aware that their work as healthcare providers had marked them as targets for Israel. This makes a mockery of the protected status hospitals and healthcare providers are granted under the oldest and most widely accepted provisions of International Humanitarian Law.” And they stress that despite spending “a combined 254 weeks inside Gaza’s largest hospitals and clinics, … not once did any of us see any type of Palestinian militant activity in any of Gaza’s hospitals or other healthcare facilities.”
12:36 AM · Oct 4, 2024
‘All were acutely aware that their work as healthcare providers had marked them as targets for Israel.’
Got that right. Israel just bombed a medical clinic in Beirut killing 9 people. Israeli doctrine seems to be to kill doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and health workers as a matter of priority. They were doing this back in 2006 when they attacked Lebanon then. If any other country on this planet did what they were doing they would have found themselves isolated and embargoed. Then again, is there any other country in the world as hated as Israel is right now?
The US might be more hated.
That this information isn’t on MSM and hasn’t been for the last 11 months for Gaza and 2.5 years for Ukraine shows an incredible bias.
As this connects to the Doc/Mishim debate. I don’t have any insite to an answer either way. But either way the US is 100% complicit in war crimes.
Hurricane Helene…. official day count since it’s immediate impact here in South Carolina is at one full week. To the good side of the ledger people I know within 20 to 40 miles have been getting power back on. Local authorities finally sending alerts with official notice of daily meals being made available yesterday evening. It does seem like areas hardest hit and hardest to reach both here and especially in western NC are still going to be in wait and hope mode. These line crews hopefully are on a rotating schedule, the work must be exhausting. And thankfully for much of the past week, the weather has been mostly cooperative and pleasant.
I’ve discovered this news source, both online and on my basic channel station ( over the air broadcast only, no functioning cable or network ability ). Honestly it’s some of the best reports of rescue efforts and donation efforts, and it’s of course of great local interest. As our host will often remind us, to look for the helpers!
https://www.qcnews.com/
Will add more details as I find them. Separately I have seen or heard of comparisons to two key storms of the past 20 years. Katrina of course but also Sandy which hit late in October 2012. FEMA only ever gets focus and attention it would appear in such epic instances of widespread destruction and yes even deaths.
“Ukraine’s top commander orders defences bolstered in the east after Vuhledar falls”
I admire the art of the headline writer. Presumably the idea is that we are all so busy chortling at the ridiculousness of that headline (maybe bolstering the defences BEFORE Vulhedar fell would have been an even better idea?) that we don’t stop to think that the headline should actually be “Ukraine defences face crisis after Vuhledar falls.”
EU should sue USA for criminalising groups that receive foreign funding, including NGOs.
The 420. Not so benign.
As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms NYT
The harms were obvious before widespread legalization.
Our son smoked high test multiple times a day in his freshman college year. Psychosis and schizophrenia followed and seeminly permanently disabled. I do not believe the “self medication” BS. Stoners, alcoholics and meth/opioid addicts will never be in the revolutionary vanguard. All going to plan.
MR. X
1969
Written under the pseudonym Mr. X to avoid the heavy social stigma associated with marijuana consumption at the time, Carl Sagan documented his personal experiences with cannabis in this essay in order to dispel common misconceptions about the drug.
https://www.organism.earth/library/document/mr-x
Israel gives the US a diabetes deal.
Whoever used the (Netanyahu?) octopus analogy for Iran strategy missed the point.
A small fire ant does not try to decapitate a tarantula!
re: Mayorkas
How much money has FEMA spent on resettling, housing, and stipends for illegal aliens entering the country in the last 2 years?
But no money for disaster aid, oh, right, a one-time $750 per person.
Maybe they can do what the Pentagon does and find a coupla spare billion through an ‘accounting error’ in the books or maybe just look behind the lounge cushions. Seems that Congress does not want to assemble to vote more money for FEMA as they are too busy campaigning. But what happens if a social media campaign comes together that dogs those Congress critters whenever they appear at a meeting and call out why they are not voting for more money for disaster relief.