Overdue Library Book Is Finally Returned 119 Years Late My Modern Met
Diggings in the garden Michael Smith, Crying in the Wilderness. Old school blogger (“Stop Me Before I Vote Again“) now on Substack.
Climate
Is A Mega Ocean Current About to Shut Down? Scientific American. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Commentary:
Here’s a thread in pictures about the Atlantic overturning circulation #AMOC which is making headlines this week. I’ve studied this topic since 1991 and will show key data and models & some video. Let’s go: observed temperature trend since 1901 from https://t.co/jGHxmrjzLG 🧵1/x pic.twitter.com/TdnNt1OYeT
— Prof. Stefan Rahmstorf 🌏 🦣 (@rahmstorf) July 28, 2023
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To Get to Zero by 2050, Regulatory Details May Matter More Than Targets Maritime Executive
The Seductive Vision Of Green Aviation Noema
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I searched hell on Earth for a story. What I found will haunt me forever LA Times. In fact a good story, despite the headline that, well, “bait” is far too mild a word…
Your body can build up tolerance to heat. Here’s how. WaPo. Try this if the heat’s not “mild.” But only after performing your “personal risk assessment”!
#COVID19
Your recent cold could be Covid-19, as the nation goes into a late summer wave CNN. URL (“summer-cold-covid-19”) shows that “summer cold” was changed to “recent cold,” possibly because “summer cold” wasn’t even a thing until Covid denialists got to work (so kudos to whatever editor couldn’t stomach this). The lying gets more and more transparent (not that it will stop):
The headlines are 11 days apart. Every time they try to lie and declare COVID is over, this happens: pic.twitter.com/cuE55zqFtp
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) July 29, 2023
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Covid cover-up: Wuhan lab leak suspicions, Anthony Fauci and how the science was silenced The Australian
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After three years of cautioning Minnesotans about COVID, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm got long COVID Star-Tribune (MV). Osterholm: “We don’t know exactly where we got it. I think the only time all three of us didn’t have a fitted N-95 mask on was just a short elevator ride in my building.” Then I think Osterholm should know, and “exactly.” Otis Elevator (press release): “Findings show the significant amount of air exchange present in most elevators combined with simple mitigation strategies, including all riders properly wearing a surgical-style mask and the installation of a common type of air purification system, puts an elevator ride on the lower end of the exposure spectrum.” Even a Baggy Blue! If Osterholm removes a layer of protection, he should not be surprised that he was unprotected. (Not to trash Osterholm, whose CIDRAP was first out of the box with negative framing on John Conly’s regrettable anti-mask screed in Cochrane Reports.) See also Marr and Corsi, in 2020, and Facility Cleaning and Maintenance, 2021.
Impact of Community Masking on SARS-CoV-2 Transmission in Ontario after Adjustment for Differential Testing by Age and Sex (preprint) medRxiv. Model based on a natural experiment. From the Abstract: “The effectiveness of mask mandates emerges as substantial, and robust regardless of model choice. Mask mandates saved substantial numbers of lives, and prevented economic costs, during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Ontario, Canada.”
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Use of Wastewater Metrics to Track COVID-19 in the US JAMA. From the Abstract: “In this study, nationwide, county wastewater levels relative to the county maximum were associated with high COVID-19 case and hospitalization rates in the first quarter of 2022, but there was increasing dissociation between wastewater and clinical metrics in subsequent quarters, which may reflect increasing underreporting of cases [note lack of agency], reduced testing, and possibly lower virulence of infection due to vaccines and treatments.” As I urged back on April 10 [lambert preens], but adding agency. CIDRAP frames this article as “Wastewater surveillance may be best marker of community COVID-19 prevalence.” Mike the Mad Biologist remarks: “[B]est is relative, since we should have a sentinel system of hospital intake (asymptomatic & symptomatic) data.” Indeed.
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SARS-CoV-2 infection alters mitochondrial and cytoskeletal function in human respiratory epithelial cells mediated by expression of spike protein mBio. From the Abstract: “This study revealed distinct epithelial responses to SCV2 infection, with early mitochondrial dysfunction in the host cells and evidence of cytoskeletal remodeling that could contribute to the worsened outcome in COVID-19 patients compared to [Influenza A virus (IAV) infection] patients. These changes in cell structure and energetics could contribute to cellular resilience early during infection, allowing for prolonged cell survival and potentially paving the way for more chronic symptoms.” In other words, Covid is not “just the flu.”
China?
Could China go ‘nuclear’ and devalue its currency to boost ailing recovery? South China Morning Post
TikTok Is Going to Sell Cheap Junk in Competition With Shein and Temu Gizmodo
‘CRISPR’ crops more resilient in climate crisis China Daily
U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations NYT
India
Video of women attacked in Manipur breaks silence on systematic gang rapes in India Guardian
How the Indian Middle Class Came to Define Bollywood JSTOR Daily
The Lucky Country
Blinken tells Australia that WikiLeaks founder is accused of ‘very serious’ crime The Hill. Yeah, journalism.
US to help Australia develop guided missiles by 2025 Al Jazeera
Africa
African Union tells Niger’s coup leaders to return to barracks Anadolu Agency
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukrainian drone attack wounds one in Moscow, briefly shuts airport Al Jazeera. Another stunt.
Did the US know the Ukraine offensive might fail, and if so, when? Responsible Statecraft
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Here’s How Poland Is Slyly Taking Control Of Western Ukraine Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter. Big if true.
War and Theft: The Takeover of Ukraine’s Agricultural Land Oakland Institute
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Putin to send six African countries grain “free of charge”, refuses to rejoin Black Sea Grain Initiative BNE Intellinews
Does Ukraine really have a neo-Nazi problem? US officials won’t say Forward
Biden Administration
Democrats balk at Alito assertion that Congress has ‘no authority’ over Supreme Court The Hill
2024
Hunter Biden’s laptop full of secret agreements and contracts with foreign business partners NY Post
Biden openly acknowledges 7th grandchild, the daughter of son Hunter and an Arkansas woman AP
Small-town GOP officials are torn over Biden’s clean energy cash WaPo. “Of the approximately $70 billion in new clean energy investment dollars announced since the climate law passed, roughly $51 billion — or 70 percent — is in counties won by Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, according to Jack Conness, a policy analyst at Energy Innovation: Policy and Technology, a nonpartisan think tank.” Concrete material benefits? Or colonization, once more, of rural America? Or both?
How to Break Up Disney Matt Stoller, Politico. The deck: “Ron DeSantis and the Hollywood strikers need to unite.”
Brother West:
I was blessed to be in dialogue with my brother Glenn Greenwald! We discussed a variety of important issues from Ukraine to the hypocrisy of both Democratic and Republican Parties! @ggreenwald #PeopleOverProfits https://t.co/RZR8KEbd2V
— Cornel West (@CornelWest) July 28, 2023
Digital Watch
Elon Musk’s Unmatched Power in the Stars NYT
As AI goes global, let the UN control it FOX
Transformers: the Google scientists who pioneered an AI revolution FT
Our Famously Free Press
The Most Embarrassing “Facebook Files” Revelation? The Press, Exposed as Censors Matt Taibbi, Racket News:
In the summer of 2021, the White House and Joe Biden were in the middle of a major factual faceplant. They were not only telling people the Covid-19 vaccine was a sure bet — ‘You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations‘ is how Biden put it — but that those who questioned its efficacy were ‘killing people.’ But the shot didn’t work as advertised. It didn’t prevent contraction or transmission, something Biden himself continued to be wrong about as late as December of that year.
(NC readers were, of course, aware of all this as it happened.) And “those who questioned” were censored, not merely by the FBI and the platforms, but by the press, which also censored itself rather than question officialdom.
Why the Press Failed on Iraq Foreign Affairs. Except for Knight-Ridder, now McClatchy, pinned in the sucking mandibles of a hedge fund, while all the shills and warmongers still make bank, WaPo and the New York Times prominent among them, along with innumerable shouting heads and green room generals. From March, still germane.
Zeitgeist Watch
Merchandizing the Void Dilettante Army. Khloé Kardashian’s pantry.
14 Warning Signs That You Are Living in a Society Without a Counterculture The Honest Broker
How critical theory is radicalizing high school debate Slow Boring
Realignment and Legitimacy
Conservatives Are Having an Epic Argument About Capitalism. Too Bad the Campaigns Are Ignoring It. Politico. And the putative left….
‘You can’t bullshit a bullshitter’ (or can you?): Bullshitting frequency predicts receptivity to various types of misleading information (abstract only) British Journal of Social Psychology. “[P]ersuasive bullshitting (i.e., bullshitting intended to impress or persuade others) positively predicts susceptibility to various types of misleading information and that this association is robust to individual differences in cognitive ability and analytic cognitive style.” From 2021, still germane.
Class Warfare
YOU LOVE TO SEE IT: Teamsters Deliver A UPS Deal Lever News vs. What Happened to the Big UPS Strike? Counterpunch
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Hotel Housekeepers Ask Taylor Swift to Postpone LA Eras Tour Concerts While Threatening to Strike The Wrap
Southern California Hotel Workers Are on Strike Against Automated Management Jacobin
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How to Forget the Lessons of the Pandemic Matt Stoller, BIG. Well worth a read, and filed here for a reason.
Digital oligarchs have weaponised the banks Unherd
Why Elite Colleges Do Affirmative Action For the Rich Eric Levitz, New York Magazine
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Kevin Spacey’s acquittal in London: A guilty verdict delivered on the entire #MeToo witch-hunt WSWS
The Jackpot
Time-travelling pathogens and their risk to ecological communities PLOS One. From the Abstract: “Given the sheer abundance of ancient microorganisms regularly released into modern communities, such a low probability of outbreak events still presents substantial risks. Our findings therefore suggest that unpredictable threats so far confined to science fiction and conjecture could in fact be powerful drivers of ecological change.” I think Taleb would argue that the “threats” are entirely “predictable.” We’re going to the casino every day until we’re ruined.
Transcript: Discussion, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” Racket News
Antidote du jour (via):
And a bonus:
Capybara spa day. pic.twitter.com/95ppu2qAyx
— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) July 24, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.