The Secrets of Cat Evolution Have Finally Been Revealed ScienceAlert (Chuck L)
Effort bias: Why we overvalue fraternities, exclusive clubs, and Taylor Swift tickets Big Think (Micael T)
Retro walking — or going backward — is good for you, experts say CNN (furzy)
Cutting of Entrapped Metal Penile Ring With Diamond Cutting Disk and Mozart Improbable. Micael T: “Sex and engineering may be the way to boost vocational training?”
Doctors Complete First Successful Face and Whole-Eye Transplant Scientific American
#COIVD-19
There you go. Long Covid is marked by T cell aging (senescence) and exhaustion, something Racaniello, Altmann, Rajkumar, Carlos Del Rio, and others said I was incorrect for saying https://t.co/0XFAmtz4hz pic.twitter.com/nZQI0HiQ7b
— AJ Leonardi, MBBS, PhD (@fitterhappierAJ) November 10, 2023
Aussies urged to wear masks in lead-up to Christmas as Covid cases skyrocket News.com.au
Climate/Environment
Pakistan is planting lots of mangrove forests – so why are some upset? NPR (David L)
Alarm Bells Sounded For Greenland’s Ice Sheet, After The Collapse of 3 Ice Shelves ScienceAlert (Chuck L)
One Huge Contradiction Is Undoing Our Best Climate Efforts Atlantic
Sand Mafias Battle for the New Gold Natilus (Micael T)
The First Small-Scale Nuclear Plant in the US Died Before It Could Live Wired (Kevin W)
India and Pakistan choked by heavy smog, forcing closure of schools, markets, parks ABC Australia (Kevin W)
Indonesia Floats Southeast Asia’s Biggest Solar Plant For 50,000 Homes Interesting Engineering
California Home to First Direct Air Capture Carbon Removal Facility in the US Bloomberg (David L)
What does a Jordan Peterson conference say about the future of climate change? Apparently we’re headed towards ‘human flourishing’ Guardian (Kevin W)
China?
🔥Brilliant move by China to work with Taliban in opening up strategic Wakhan corridor for trade!
This 200×10-mile mountainous path links Xinjiang to Afghanistan — also part of Ancient Silk Road!
Plus, this means direct path from Iran to China.
Trade, connectivity, peace and… pic.twitter.com/I4ghC4rZIW
— S.L. Kanthan (@Kanthan2030) November 9, 2023
Nvidia’s Great Wall of GPUs: China’s Hoarding Spree Toms Hardware
Old Blighty
UK regulator details plans to police online behavior RT (Kevin W)
Rishi Sunak faces Tory civil war as he holds off sacking Suella Braverman Guardian (Kevin W)
Fallout From Catastrophic Ukraine Depleted Uranium Explosion Reached England Sputnik (Kevin W)
Gaza
Don’t look away.
Listen to Youmna ElSayed explain how she and her children will likely die soon, but at least they will be together.
Listen to her describe the corpses lining their only escape route, weeks-old and half-eaten by vultures.
Listen. And don’t look away. https://t.co/gm4sqoxCxh
— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) November 9, 2023
Disease, Thirst and Hunger Spread In Gaza / How Erdogan Could Help Ian Welsh (Micael T)
Still unable to digest the fact that Israeli snipers were purposefully targeting children in the ICU of a hospital today. Looking through the sight and pulling the trigger, again and again and again. pic.twitter.com/n9Sx67XJP9
— Ben Ehrenreich (@BenEhrenreich) November 10, 2023
Watch this absolutely insane footage of Israel wiping out the Khalid bin al-Walid Mosque in Gaza yesterday. pic.twitter.com/1bFRfjhehZ
— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) November 9, 2023
Macron calls on Israel to stop killing Gaza’s women and babies BBC. Lead story.
Blinken says ‘far too many Palestinians have been killed’ in Gaza Anadolu Agency. The handwaving is offensive.
* * * Hezbollah is really burning down all the monitoring stations, leaving the border completely open. Two decades of construction, 10s of billions of dollars, completely gone. pic.twitter.com/dNOVwH6fg1
— Korobochka (コロボ) 🇦🇺✝️🇷🇺 (@cirnosad) November 9, 2023
Putting this link here even though it has commentary on Russia too: SITREP 11/10/23: Israeli Economy Buckles, Russia Breaks Through in Avdeevka Simpilicius the Thinker
Note the contrast between Simplicius in his take on how well (not) the IDF is doing in clearing Gaza so far with Jacab Dreizin. Simplicius contends that the IDF has hardly deployed infantry and therefore has not engaged Hamas much; Dreizin says the IDF has so much drone cover they don’t need to expose infantry. From a day ago and with a Daily-Mail-on-steroids headline starting with: Israel makes broad move inland from Gaza coast, widely reported to be in immediate vicinity of 3 hospitals ranging from Shifa in “central” Gaza City to the Nasser
A Few Notes On The War On Palestine Moon of Alabama. Kevin W: “Check out the Craig Murray tweet.”
* * * ‘Nowhere and no one is safe’ in Gaza, WHO chief tells Security Council News.UN. BC: “Includes summaries of various national positions.”
Mossad, CIA chiefs discuss Gaza hostage deal at Qatar talks France 24 (furzy)
* * * Biden’s ‘personal attachment to Israel’ fuels its massacres in Gaza Aaron Mate
New Not-So-Cold War
Transcript of 7 November interview with WION on Putin’s likely successor Gilbert Doctorow (Chuck L)
Russia may downgrade diplomatic relations with US, senior diplomat says TASS (guurst)
Moody’s cuts U.S. outlook to negative, citing deficits and political polarization CNBC (furzy)
Syraqistan
Secularism in Iran aeon (Micael T)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
BC is very unhappy with the surveillance implications of this device. Twitter fortunately on balance not enthusiastic:
This is the Humane Ai Pin https://t.co/ytUSGF3y55 pic.twitter.com/Zrcoaf49u7
— Humane (@Humane) November 9, 2023
How a Tiny Pacific Island Became the Global Capital of Cybercrime MIT Technology Review
Imperial Collapse Watch
Why Do We Let Israel And Ukraine Wag The US Dog? Responsible Statecraft
Crisis Update: How -Isms Make War Moneycircus (Micael T)
‘Terrorist’ economy: Washington is prepared to create a new financial disaster for the whole world RT. Kevin W: “Misleading title.” Moi: More than that. There is no evidence that the Treasury market is in trouble in this piece (as in sloppy auctions). 5% for long-dated bonds hardly anomalous by historical standards and the Fed is not done with its tightening operation. The Chinese have shifted from buying Treasuries to slightly higher Agencies. SAMA, Saudi Arabia’s central bank, has cut Treasury holdings….as its sovereign wealth fund has been buying them bigly. That is not to say there might not be trouble in Treasury auctions, but the various factoids don’t establish that.
2024
Jill Stein launches a long-shot Green Party presidential campaign, bringing back memories of 2016 Associated Press. Kevin W: “Didn’t she burn up a lot of Green Party funds after Trump won in 2016 trying to challenge him with recounts on behalf of Hillary?”
To help 2024 voters, Meta says it will begin labeling political ads that use AI-generated imagery Associated Press (Kevin W)
Shutdown Drama
US House Republicans plan shutdown-averting measure amid credit warning Reuters (furzy)
House Republicans Clash Over Spending Days Ahead of Shutdown Deadline New York Times (furzy)
GOP divisions force Mike Johnson to punt on spending bills Axios (Kevin W)
GOP Clown Car
A List of Times Republicans Said Things Worse Than Rashida Tlaib—but Weren’t Censured New Republic (furzy)
Mike Johnson Flies Christian Nationalist ‘Appeal to Heaven’ Flag Rolling Stone (furzy)
Democrats en déshabillé
F.B.I. Seizes Eric Adams’s Phones as Campaign Investigation Intensifies New York Times
How McConnell helped engineer Manchin’s exit Politico (Kevin W)
Our No Longer Free Press
Jezebel Will Shut Down, Parent Company Announces New York Time (Dr. Kevin)
Forget the S&P 500. Pay attention to the S&P 493 Economist (Dr. Kevin)
The Bezzle
Elon Musk told SpaceX workers not to wear safety clothes because he doesn’t like bright colors: report Business Insider (Kevin W)
Class Warfare
Something is amiss in Iowa Art Cullen (Chuck L). More important than anodyne headline suggests.
Citi fined $25.9M for discriminating against Armenian Americans after government probe Yahoo (Kevin W)
Katharine Hepburn’s childhood, in her own words.
“Once when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus.
Finally, there was only one other family between us and the ticket counter. This family made a big impression on me.
There were eight… pic.twitter.com/POObHzmrLM— Betty 🕊️ (@CaliforniaFrizz) November 8, 2023
Antidote du jour:
And a bonus (guurst):
Tragopan bird trying to impress a female
pic.twitter.com/pQFF1DSJrN— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) November 9, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
