Links 11/1/2024

Instagram-famous squirrel named Peanut seized by New York state authorities AP

The Many Avatars Of Coconuts Madras Courier

What’s so special about the human brain? Nature

Monkeys will never type Shakespeare, study finds BBC

Climate

Floods in Spain: ‘The Mediterranean’s warming is dynamite’ Le Monde

What’s behind Colorado’s dirty snow? Dust blown in from the Southwest — and it’s brought problems with it. Colorado Sun

Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula The Atlantic

Syndemics

Tracking the U.S. bird flu outbreak has been hard. It’s about to get harder STAT

Viruses Through the Looking-Glass JSTOR Daily

China?

What is China’s biggest security threat? The US, says a top Chinese researcher South China Morning Post

Russell Hsiao on US Policies and Taiwan’s Politics The Diplomat

US Space Force warns of ‘mind-boggling’ build-up of Chinese capabilities FT

How Japan’s youngest CEO transformed Hello Kitty BBC

The Koreas

South Korea weighs arming Ukraine after North Korean deployment FT

BRICS

BRICS grows, adding 13 new ‘partner countries’ at historic summit in Kazan, Russia Geopolitical Report

No, BRICS Isn’t Trying to Rival the West Foreign Policy

Transcript of Judging Freedom, 31 October 2024 Gilbert Doctorow, Armageddon Newsletter

Africa

Botswana president concedes election, ending governing party’s six-decade rule France24

Syraqistan

Israel has damaged or destroyed nearly a quarter of buildings in Lebanon’s south WaPo

Thousands flee following Israel’s evacuation orders in south, east Lebanon France24

Lebanese Prime Minister ‘cautiously optimistic’ about truce possibility France24

U.S. ambassador to Lebanon promotes ‘internal uprising’ to assist Israel: Report The Cradle

* * *

As religious Zionist IDF casualties rise, so does resentment of Haredi exemption bill Times of Israel

Ministries cut ties with Haaretz over ‘apartheid’ allegations Jerusalem Post

* * *

Stop the Boycott of Israeli Culture NYT

The New Great Game

Accounts of Georgian employees of the “Atlantic Council” have been frozen JAM News

New Not-So-Cold War

The Forest and the Trees: Ukraine’s Strategic Dissipation Big Serge

Partner or Instrument? Ukraine’s Place in US Foreign Policy Strategy Valdai Discussion Club

* * *

Russia’s Swift March Forward in Ukraine’s East NYT

Ukraine is now struggling to cling on, not to win The Economist

The Putin Dilemma: Why Peace in Ukraine Requires Russia’s Defeat The National Interest

The Bizarre Case Of Two Fake Ukrainian Brigades Forbes

* * *

How North Korea’s Elite Soldiers Could Change Ukraine War Newsweek

Congressman calls on US and NATO to consider attacking North Korean troops in Ukraine Ukrainska Pravda

Zelenskyy responds on whether Ukraine could request ICC arrest warrant for Kim Jong Un Ukrainska Pravda

* * *

Brave1 Ukrainian military-tech cluster attracts US$25 million in foreign investment Ukrainska Pravda

Why sanctions on Russia are literally backfiring Responsible Statecraft

* * *

Russo-Ukrainian war, day 981: Kyiv reveals only 10% of US aid reached Ukraine EuroMaidan Press

Ukraine may need to pressure Moldova if Stoianoglo wins election – former Ukrainian foreign minister Ukrainska Pravda

2024

AP sources: White House altered record of Biden’s ‘garbage’ remarks despite stenographer concerns AP

* * *

Investors step up bets that US election will trigger market volatility FT

The U.S. election need not be scary. History shows this is the way to trade it, says Citi. MarketWatch

* * *

How science journals are confronting the ‘existential’ question of politics this election STAT

Trump sues CBS News for $10B for ‘editing’ Harris interview on 60 Minutes Anadolu Agency

David Clements: The Evangelist of Election Refusal Lawfare

Antitrust

Elon Musk: “Lina Khan Will Be Fired Soon” Matt Stoller, BIG

Digital Watch

Microsoft again delays Recall feature, says it will arrive for Windows Insiders on Copilot Plus PCs in December Tom’s Hardware

Russia fines Google more money than there is in entire world BBC

Boeing

Boeing Dismantles Diversity Team as Pressure Builds on New CEO Bloomberg

The Final Frontier

US Space Force warns of ‘mind-boggling’ build-up of Chinese capabilities FT

Imperial Collapse Watch

How the U.S. military lost a $250 million war game in minutes WaPo. Millenium Challenge.

The New Denial of Imperialism on the Left Monthly Review

Can we trust official statistics? The data gaps shaping our view of the economy FT

Class Warfare

Workers Win Union Election at Mississippi Market Co-op Workday Magazine

Amazing 30-Year Experiment Shows Evolution Unfolding in Slow Motion Science Alert

Antidote du jour (Lip Kee ):

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.

39 comments

  1. Antifa

    BIBI NETANYAHU
    (melody borrowed from You’re So Vain  by Carly E. Simon)

    You’ve always been Bogarty as you’re stalking a dream you’ve got
    You act a seemingly script defined nice guy
    A dwarf not a juggernaut
    But your record can’t be clearer, and it’s high time you were taught
    Your Zionist dream has made only martyrs, made only martyrs (and)

    You’re insane
    You murder people you’re not allowed to
    You’re insane (you’re insane!)
    You’ve trapped two million people without food
    Get trucks through, trucks through!

    Oh, you’re starving kids and mothers, and you offer them no reprieve
    Negotiation charades from an empty chair—your toilet in Tel Aviv!
    While America works hand in glove, they don’t like what they see
    Your UN speech makes you sound kamikaze, sound kamikaze (and)

    You’re insane
    You murder people you’re not allowed to
    You’re insane (you’re insane!)
    You’ve trapped two million people without food
    Get trucks through, trucks through, trucks through!

    (musical interlude)

    Your UN speech makes you sound kamikaze, sound kamikaze (and)

    You’re insane
    You murder people you’re not allowed to
    You’re insane (you’re insane!)
    You’ve trapped two million people without food
    Get trucks through, trucks through!

    Now your current plan wants to provoke a
    World war to block the sun
    When your Air Force and missiles cannot approach a
    Completely prepared and well armed Iran
    There’s no doubt you’re guilty of high crimes
    And now you’re caught beneath your mountain of lies
    Yet you still try to pretend, still try to pretend (and)

    You’re insane
    You murder people you’re not allowed to
    You’re insane (you’re insane!)
    You’ve trapped two million people without food
    Get trucks through, trucks through, trucks through! (now!)

    You’re insane
    You murder people you’re not allowed to
    You’re insane
    You’ve trapped two million people without food
    You’re insane

    Reply
  2. ex-PFC Chuck

    Monkeys will never type Shakespeare, study finds BBC

    Undoubtedly an IgNobel Prize candidate. The only question is which category. Mathematics? Neuroscience?

    Reply
    1. Terry Flynn

      Literature. Because eventually every monkey would progress to intelligence but get so annoyed at the weird interchangeability of letters F and S that they’d type SSF and storm off.

      Reply
          1. mrsyk

            You got a chuckle out of me. I was going to make one where Flipper must be the author of the monkeys can’t write piece.

            Reply
  3. The Rev Kev

    “Zelenskyy responds on whether Ukraine could request ICC arrest warrant for Kim Jong Un”

    This is just Zelensky being Zelensky. North Korea is not a signatory state to the ICC so it means nothing. Well, you would think so. However, in a 2016 complaint to the ICC-

    ‘The complainants had said that although North Korea is not an ICC member state, the ICC may exercise jurisdiction over its leader, given that under South Korean domestic law, he may be considered a national of South Korea.’

    https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20191206000481

    Wouldn’t want to be the cop trying to serve Kim Jong Un with an arrest warrant though.

    Reply
    1. Mikel

      The Duran has considered that the MSM is pulling a Don Draper with the N Korea narrative.They don’t want to talk about Ukraine losing.

      “If you don’t like what’s be said, change the conversation.”

      Reply
      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        The msm parrots what they are told. They don’t do anything other than wait for a policy shop to tell them. “Ukraine might lose” didn’t garner the necessary traction, so the Ukraine war backers have moved to “omg north korea.”

        Guys like Biden in his more lucid moments wants Ukraine gone without a collapse, and the Likudniks are way more concerned with genocide.

        Reply
  4. Steve H.

    Remembering Gonzalo Lira, I rabbit holed the Blog Roll and found this:

    > The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic has sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department, recommending former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo be charged with making false statements to Congress.

    [headlineusa.com/house-covid-committee-tells-doj-to-prosecute-andrew-cuomo/

    Reply
  5. Zagonostra

    >Throw Out Your Black Plastic Spatula The Atlantic

    First useful article from The Atlantic I’ve read this year…

    Reply
    1. Carolinian

      Of course the irony is that the flame retardants themselves are likely a consumer protection measure mandated by government for the source electronic device housings. And the popularity of plastic spatulas is in order not to scratch the potentially hazardous nonstick coating of many of today’s pots and pans. Better living through chemistry??

      I’ll avoid those spatulas but could be that our modern world has bigger hazards to worry about. As Butch says to anxious Sundance, “the fall alone will probably kill ya.”

      Reply
  6. The Rev Kev

    “The Bizarre Case Of Two Fake Ukrainian Brigades”

    ‘The 88th Mechanized Brigade and 13th Jager Brigade only appear real. Given that the people behind the two fictitious units never tried to raise money, it’s unlikely the “brigades” were part of some elaborate financial scam.’

    Not so fast there, pardner. Two brigades would be about what, eight to ten thousand men? So are these “troops” being paid by the Ministry of Defense like real life troops? In many units officers do not report the deaths of their men so that they can pocket their wages and the Russians have filmed the Ukrainians dumping the bodies of their own soldiers in out of the way places so that they do not have to be reported as KIA. That is a retail approach but it looks like with those 2 brigades somebody wanted to do it on a wholesale level.

    Reply
    1. Es s Ce Tera

      The number 88 is significant among the neo-Nazi and white supremacist crowd. H is the 8th letter, so 88 means HH and Heil Hitler. I have no doubt that was top of mind by whoever created the brigade…

      Jaeger means hunter in German and a quick search shows there was no 13th Jaeger in Germany during WW2, although there was in WW1.

      And Norway, Netherlands, Sweden and Finland currently have Jaeger units. The US also has a Jaeger unit. I guess they admire Germany or something.

      Reply
      1. JohnA

        jägare means hunter in Swedish, probably derived from German as many words are, but Sweden was neutral for 200 years until the latest clown show governments that are so desperate to burnish their lackey vassality credentials to the US that they rushed the country into Nato without a hint of asking the people. Nothing to do with admiring Germany.

        Reply
    2. lyman alpha blob

      Another oddity – the paychecks sent by the Ministry of Defense are all made out to Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Who woulda thought there were so many Ukrainians with the same name??!!??

      Reply
  7. The Rev Kev

    “Russia fines Google more money than there is in entire world”

    Who would have ever suspected before this war that Russians were masters of trolling? Not me.

    Reply
    1. mrsyk

      Right? That headline came across my feed last night. I couldn’t stop laughing. Westernize Russia? Mission accomplished!

      Reply
  8. .Tom

    I don’t have a NYT sub so I admit to not having read the article but the headline “Stop the Boycott of Israeli Culture” immediately provoked two questions. What is Israeli culture? What is the boycott of Israeli culture?

    Reply
    1. VTDigger

      1. Explaining why they are the master race chosen people
      2. My guess is the market is saturated and there isn’t room for yet another book/movie about the Holocaust and the publishers are having a sad

      Reply
    2. The Rev Kev

      They might be scared that Israel might be “canceled” the same way that Russia has been the past two years. It could happen. Google won’t cough up the link but very recently authors were being warned not to dare criticize Israel if they knew what was good for them. So this boycott of Israel may be a counter protest and them saying that they will not be silent in the face of a genocide. But if you ask Israel, they will tell you that all those boycotters are Hamas.

      Reply
    3. Carolinian

      It’s by some Israeli literary agents.

      “Our writers have earned international reputations by inspiring readers and exploring the complex texture of Israeli life — writers like Meir Shalev, Yehuda Amichai, Tom Segev, Zeruya Shalev, Matti Friedman and Hila Blum, who more often than not challenge the powerful with the truth.”

      That claimed challenge doesn’t seem to be having much effect. Meanwhile thousands are having their right to live challenged so that “complex texture” can carry on.

      Going by our major media outlets not to mention my local library I’d say the Israeli point of view, challenging or not, is not exactly hidden under a barrel here in the US. If boycotts mean Israeli writers can’t attend literary festivals or receive prizes that is so terribly sad, surely worthy of a piece in the Times.

      Reply
  9. GramSci

    Re: Human Brain

    «There must be something about the human brain … that explains why humans get devastating conditions that other animals don’t — such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.»

    Sure there is. It’s called language. An especially rich and deceptive environment that humans have had to adapt to.

    Reply
  10. The Rev Kev

    “As religious Zionist IDF casualties rise, so does resentment of Haredi exemption bill”

    Got that right. Last month alone the Israelis lost at least 62 soldiers – at least. Those soldiers are getting called up again and again to fight a war that they have never prepared or trained for. So what is the government telling those soldiers in light of the fact that the Haredi are still getting a free pass? ‘Shut Up and Fight’-

    https://archive.is/EWvzu#selection-533.46-533.63

    Reply
  11. Mikel

    Russia fines Google more money than there is in entire world – BBC

    That’s actually hilarious and makes a point.
    Insane fines for insane valuations.

    Reply
  12. Ignacio

    It is an interesting contrast reading “The Forest and the Trees: Ukraine’s Strategic Dissipation” by Big Serge and subsequently “The Putin Dilemma: Why Peace in Ukraine Requires Russia’s Defeat” The National Interest by Dr. Aurel Brown who I think missed a few doses of Calmodon(TM) tablets to prevent the Putin Derangement Syndrome overwhelming his writing/thinking capacities.

    Even if the contrast is stark you can take the very same conclusion from both readings: the West is negotiation incapable. If you go with Serge’s take it will end with total defeat of Ukraine in some undefined future and if you go with Brown’s one this will end in a happy “Ukraine in NATO” future involving total dismantlement of Mord… er Russia. One of these alternatives looks more rooted in facts than the other. For now, you are free to choose.

    Reply
  13. The Rev Kev

    “Congressman calls on US and NATO to consider attacking North Korean troops in Ukraine”

    “North Korean troops do not belong in Europe attacking another European nation,” Turner said.

    But apparently that Congressman is fine with soldiers from as far afield as Japan and South America coming to Europe to attack a European nation. I’m just waiting for some idiot to have the bright idea that what they should do is bring two or three brigades of South Koreans to the Ukraine to fight the Russians as it would be only fair. The South Koreans were stupid enough to let themselves be convinced to send artillery rounds and military gear to the Ukraine but I can’t see them jumping at such an offer to send their own troops there.

    Reply

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