Anchovy Sex Is a Force of Nature Hakai News
Puppies found in freezing cold under abandoned house are rescued by good Samaritans FOX
Weird ancient tree from before dinosaurs found in Canadian quarry CBC
Paleontologists Are Still Unraveling the Mystery of the First Dinosaur Smithsonian
‘Incredibly rare’ discovery reveals bedbugs came to Britain with the Romans Guardian
Tract for our times Times Literary Supplement. Wittgenstein.
Climate
Jury awards climate scientist Michael Mann $1 million in defamation lawsuit Orlando Sentinel
#COVID19
A Stagecraft Theory of Pandemic Mismanagement Pandemic Accountability Index
China?
China Offers Support to Accelerate EV Makers’ Global Push WSJ
China’s top legislative body to discuss ‘appointments and dismissals’ amid military purge South China Morning Post
Commentary: Why China’s top spy agency is stepping out of the shadows Channel News Asia
She met over 100 guys but didn’t find love. In China, marriage is pie in the sky for many more Channel News Asia
The Good and the Bad for Biden in Southeast Asia RAND
Malaysia’s top court rules some Islamic laws in Kelantan unconstitutional Al Jazeera
India
Google partners with Maharashtra govt to provide AI-led services Business Standard
Syraqistan
Let Them Eat Dirt Chris Hedges, Scheerpost
AIPAC of Lies The Baffler
Blinken’s Israel visit exposes limits of US diplomacy FT
False Alternative New Left Review
* * *
COMMENT: An Armenia-Azerbaijan ‘peace’ is further away than ever BNE Intellinews
Authoritarian leadership in CIS countries: How presidents maintain decades-long power” JAM News. About page.
European Disunion
Germany mulls nationalization of Rosneft Deutschland: report S&P Global
New Not-So-Cold War
Putin says defeat in Ukraine ‘impossible’ in interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson France24. See Yves here.
Putin rants about Ukraine, detained US journalist, and history in Tucker Carlson interview: Live Independent. A rant? Hardly
Putin says he’s open to negotiating with US over Ukraine war in lengthy Carlson interview The Hill. Not new; talk to the organ grinder, not the monkey.
Journamalism:
Some 💎 of “real journalists”:
“The Ghost of Kiev”
“Ukraine is winning”
“Russia is out of missiles, etc.”
“Sanctions work”
“Russia is collapsing”
“Bakhmut holds”
“Shoigu is dead”
“Putin has cancer, etc.”
“Russia’s economy is in tatters”
“Bakhmut holds”…
— Yuliana Dlugaj 🇷🇺🇨🇳🇮🇷🇰🇵 (@DlugajJuly) February 7, 2024
* * *
Ukraine risks critical shortage of western ammunition, officials warn FT
Ukraine’s president replaces top general to shake up deadlocked war with Russia AP
Removal of Ukraine’s ‘Iron General’ is one of Zelenskyy’s biggest gambles The Atlantic Council
Patiently Waiting to Strike William Schryver, imetatronink
* * *
Russia’s Next Election Is Likely To Put Putin In Power For Longer Than Anyone Since Peter The Great Madras Courierd
The cost of Russia’s collapsing empire Unherd
Russia the Driver Behind China’s Aluminium Import Boom InfoBrics
The Caribbean
Protests intensify in Haiti against prime minister Anadolu Agency
Biden Adminstration
Reform the Budget Process to Strengthen U.S. Global Leadership RAND
2024
Biden classified docs report brings no criminal charges, but enough to invoke 25th Amendment: critics FOX
* * *
Biden refers to Egypt’s Sisi as ‘president of Mexico’ Al Jazeera
‘My memory is fine’: Joe Biden rages as age question resurfaces FT. Poetic interlude:
Do not go gentle into that good night,Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how brightTheir frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sightBlind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.Do not go gentle into that good night.Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Yes, but as President?
A Dementia Patient Is President Because It Doesn’t Matter Who The President Is Caitlin Johnstone. If we’re in Twenty-Fifth Amendment territory, perhaps we’ll get to take a look at Harris’s mad Presidenting skillz sooner than we thought.
* * *
A Grand Bargain Is Emerging in the Supreme Court’s Trump Cases, but Chaos May Be Ahead Slate (marym).
Our Famously Free Press
America: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave Gilbert Doctorow
Tucker Carlson met Edward Snowden in Moscow Semafor
Testimony to Congress on the Threat of Online Censorship and the Need for Free Speech Lee Fang
The Bezzle
Kashkari on Bitcoin:
Why the Fed’s Kashkari is confident in the USD network: “There is an infinite amount of cash at the Federal Reserve”
Why he isn’t confident in the bitcoin network: “Americans aren’t using it to buy sandwiches… it has no utility in the real world.” https://t.co/H8eFz5XdYT pic.twitter.com/TeLcofA8E6
— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) February 6, 2024
Disney v. Democracy? A Public Choice and Good Governance Analysis of Florida’s Reedy Creek Improvement Act of 1967 and Its Resulting Regime (PDF) George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 24-01. Even the reactionaries think that Disney’s Florida sacrifice zone is a bit much.
Digital Watch
News Corp in ‘advanced’ talks with AI firms on deals to license content, CEO says NY Post. Silicon Valley builds an industry on theft, and then says “Honey, I’ve changed!”
Google saves your conversations with Gemini for years by default TechCrunch
Bluesky Social Network Ditches Invite Codes, Opens Registrations to All MacRumors
In its tantrum with Europe, Apple broke web apps in iOS 17 beta, still hasn’t fixed them The Register. Reading the technical detail, it looks like Doctorow was right:
An app is just a web-page wrapped in enough IP to make it a felony to add an ad-blocker to it.
Boeing
The Boeing plane whose door blew off midflight was making a ‘whistling sound’ on a previous flight, amended complaint says Associated Press. So Alaska Airlines is implicated too?
Supply Chain
Somali pirates are back on the attack at a level not seen in years, adding to global shipping threats Hellenic Shipping News
Northern Alaska Is Running Out of Rocks The Atlantic
Feral Hog Watch
His Best Friend Was a 250-Pound Warthog. One Day, It Decided to Kill Him. Texas Monthly
Guillotine Watch
Fauci to cash in on pandemic fame: Ex-White House doc announces he’s releasing new memoir in June reflecting on 40 years in government Daily Mail
Class Warfare
The importance of a mass movement MR Online. Commentary:
It is common knowledge that the masses are divided into classes, that the masses can be contrasted with classes only by contrasting the vast majority in general, regardless of division according to status in the social system of production, with categories holding a definite status in the social system of production; that as a rule and in most cases—at least in present-day civilised countries—classes are led by political parties; that political parties, as a general rule, are run by more or less stable groups composed of the most authoritative, influential and experienced members, who are elected to the most responsible positions, and are called leaders. All this is elementary. All this is clear and simple. Why replace this with some kind of rigmarole, some new Volapük?
— V. I. Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder (1920). The only other place I’ve encountered the word “Volapük” is William Gibson’s Spook Country. Not sure what to make of that.
U.S. Workers Assess the Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Jobs (PDF) Heldrich Center for Workplace Development
Surprising new evidence on happiness and wealth (press release) McGill University
Mathematicians finally solved Feynman’s “reverse sprinkler” problem Ars Technica
Discovery of quantum vibrations in ‘microtubules’ inside brain neurons supports controversial theory of consciousness Science Daily
Antidote du jour (via):
Bonus antidote:
But have you ever seen a flamingo eating under water? 🦩
🔊 pic.twitter.com/yH8LGuKRUy
— Jessi 💫 (@its_jessi_grace) February 8, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here
