This Transparent Beehive Lets Beekeepers See the Bees at Work MyModernMet (David L)
Texas Bats Face a Pandemic of Their Own Undark
Spectacular, incredible, amazing.. rarely seen smoke rings at Mt Etna YouTube (Dr. Kevin)
Math Proof Draws New Boundaries Around Black Hole Formation Quanta (furzy)
The Aging Brain: Is Misplaced DNA to Blame? Science (UserFriendly)
Pink Floyd strike a chord as scientists recreate song from brain activity Financial Times (David L)
Bride Of Bay Area House Party Astral Codex Ten (albrt)
#COVID-19
CMS Administrator Brooks-LaSure Letter to Payors Regarding Coverage of COVID-19 Vaccines Post Commercialization HHS. ma: “So…..still free? kinda sorta maybe…… supposed to be?”
Scientists call for Brits to wear masks again due to startling new Covid variant Mirror. Our GM is e-mailing us about a lot of new, highly mutated variants in recent days, not yet clear which will also have serious reproductive advantage. But the heavy mutations suggest they have very good odds of evading prior infection and vaccination.
Climate/Environment
World Bank Climate Finance Plan Little Help, Unfair Jomo Kwame Sundaram and Khoo Wei Yang
Non-native grass species blamed for ferocity of Hawaii wildfires Guardian (Kevin W)
Argentina’s far-right presidential candidate Javier Milei confirmed he is in touch with the US-controlled International Monetary Fund (IMF), and they’re going to meet.
Milei boasted that his plan for mass privatizations is “much harsher” and “much stronger” than even the… https://t.co/LOuxfdfZi7
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) August 16, 2023
China?
Global investors dump Chinese securities as state support hopes fade Financial Times
1/3It may seem like terrible luck and amazing coincidence that so many things are going wrong in the Chinese economy at the same time, but of course it is not coincidence at all. This is how systemic imbalances work themselves out.https://t.co/k0iulJZ89T
— Michael Pettis (@michaelxpettis) August 17, 2023
china vs india gdp growth
likely to start converging again over the coming decade
but it’s going to be a long process pic.twitter.com/JuTTL5BK7b
— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) August 16, 2023
US driving situation on Korean Peninsula to brink of nuclear war — DPRK defense minister TASS (guurst)
Japan, South Korea strengthen security ties amid signs of thawing relations long strained by wartime history Channel News Asia
Niger
France’s colonial legacy, US’ security concerns intersect in Niger; Russians at the gates look for new hunting grounds Indian Punchline (Kevin W)
France Reportedly Thinks That The US Backstabbed It During Nuland’s Trip To Niger Andrew Korybko (Micael T)
New Not-So-Cold War
Ukraine Commits Last Remaining Elite Brigade For Final Attempt Simplicius the Thinker. We had passed along a report from Alexander Mercouris that Ukraine was rumored to be committing its last reserves to Kharkiv, rather than redeploying troops from its offensive in Zaporzhizhia. This report is another data point affirming the idea that Ukraine is going all in. It must perceive or have been told it needs to show something it can tout as progress before the fall mud season hits (normally starting mid-Sept to October) or its prospects for support at anything the current level will wane.
🗞️Ukrainian General Staff held meeting with Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander, U.S. European Command Gen. Cavoli, Chief of the British Defence Staff Admiral Radakin, and representatives of partner delegations.#UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/Ff8lX74DqO
— MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) August 16, 2023
Warning as unexploded Russian mines wash up on Europe’s tourist beaches Independent (furzy). While this is possible, recall Turkyie complaining early in the war about Ukraine mines floating long distances from where they were laid and getting in sea lanes. Generally, my impression is Russia has tried to place naval mines in a way that they can be retrieved later. Russia after all regards the Black Sea as a Russian lake.
Here we gohttps://t.co/ebFXbqD4yT
— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) August 16, 2023
Russia’s War-Torn Economy Hits Its Speed Limit Wall Street Journal. Lead story. The level of the rouble is not of much consequence given that Russia is pretty close to an autarky. A cheap rouble might even be seen as a plus internally now that Europe has divorced Russia, since it will encourage even more import substitution, facilitate Russia giving discounts to Global South trading partners who buy commodities in roubles, and discourage Russians from buying property abroad (there was a lot in Phuket earlier this year, for instance). It will, however, make Russians wanting to vacation abroad unhappy. Some businesses could also have wrong-footed how they manage currency risk or foreign purchases, so it’s not as if the plunge won’t do some harm. I also believe Russia is still getting a lot of cars and car parts from abroad, so this would be another area that could suffer if a super cheap rouble (say below 80-85 to USD) persists. Alexander Mercouris has more commentary (and also gave us a nice shout out).
Report: Russia Evades Oil Price Cap by Inflating Shipping Costs Maritime Executive (Kevin W)
Syraqistan
Pakistan: Mob burns churches over blasphemy claims BBC (furzy)
Over 100 people detained in attacks on churches in Pakistan Anadolu Agency
Senators Urge Biden to Unload Tanker Carrying Stolen Iranian Oil Antiwar.com (Kevin W)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Non-enterprise user? Microsoft may store your Bing chats The Register (BC)
Requiring ink to scan a document—yet another insult from the printer industry ars technica (Kevin W). Another reason not to own a multi-purpose device.
LinkedIn accounts hacked in widespread hijacking campaign Bleeping Computer (BC)
Imperial Collapse Watch
AUKUS, QUAD transforming alliance-like Indian Punchline (Kevin W)
Is America a War State? Matt Taibbi
Boston Consulting Group — consultant to kleptocrats Daily Maverick (Hennie S). McKinsey has competition!
Trump
Trump seeks to weaponize Georgia indictment in 2024 race The Hill. This is no doubt true and Trump’s opponents underestimate how giving him huge amounts of free press, good or bad, boosts him. But the offset is Trump will have to spend time on these cases, particularly if his attorneys do not succeed with delaying tactics. He will have to appear in court. He will have to spend money on lawyers. All this will cut into time and resources for campaigning.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ: Al Gore, his legal team and I tried to find uncounted presidential votes, lobbied officials and fought in the courts in 2000. The only difference now? The candidate’s name is Donald Trump… That’s why this prosecution is an outrage Daily Mail (Li)
The Purpose Of The Trump Indictments Is To Demonstrate The Left’s Power The Federalist (Li)
Clues point to identities of ‘unindicted co-conspirators’ in alleged Coffee County breach Washington Post (furzy)
Elon Musk accused of withholding Twitter data to ‘cozy up’ to Trump New York Post. I don’t know about the policy under Musk but the old Twitter was known for fighting subpoenas harder than other social media platforms.
Tucker Carlson lays out ACTUAL voting fraud in Fulton County.
Even left-wing editors at Atlanta Journal Constitution agreed.pic.twitter.com/QrU5oiDHsK
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) August 16, 2023
Texas woman arrested for alleged death threats to DC judge in Trump election interference case ABC (furzy)
Trump supporters post names and addresses of Georgia grand jurors online NBC (furzy)
RFK, Jr.
Yet I know Tucker but a long interview where Tucker says very little. A lot of errors in fine points, like Zelensky got 73% of vote, not 90%, Russia started SMO with more like 150,000 troops, not 40,000. Also wrong on fund ownership of defense concractors. Fund managers do not own shares, their funds do, and these are significantly in index funds (as in they are held and traded simply for index replication, not for any investment point of view and the fund manager will vote any proxies they control to support management) and then the end owners are very often 401(k)s and IRAs. Plus many fund managers offer brokerage accounts. The shares are held in street name, as in in the broker’s name, when a retail customer controls the shares.
Ep. 16 RFK Jr. explains Ukraine, bio-labs, and who killed his uncle pic.twitter.com/RMr5VZVqSM
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 14, 2023
2024
Mark G: “WaPost touts Ilhan Omar’s challenger without mentioning the race or Omar.” Moi: Not paywalled. She was a felon who was addicted to drugs. Then she became a lawyer. Washington Post
Why a stopgap funding bill could face a rocky road in the House The Hill
Our No Longer Free Press
Publisher of raided Kansas newspaper ‘vindicated’ by prosecutor’s decision to return seized items after backlash CNN (furzy)
Anti-Press Hatred Is Alive and Well in Kansas Intercept
AI
The Associated Press sets AI guidelines for journalists Verge
Summers Sees 10-Year Yields Averaging 4.75% in Coming Decade Bloomberg
The Fed still has it backwards, so there’s no telling how high they’ll keep pumping up inflationary deficit spending with their rate hikes as they continue to chase their tail: pic.twitter.com/sI8qEBk68E
— Warren B. Mosler (@wbmosler) August 16, 2023
The Bezzle
WeWork sounds the alarm, prompting speculation around the company’s future Associated Press (Kevin W)
Class Warfare
This is raw and real, it’s the middle class that’s getting hit hard.
This lady makes $34/hr and can’t even survive in Canada … 🚨🚨🚨
🔊 pic.twitter.com/B7x1pfjQxO
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) August 15, 2023
Biden hands CHIPS Act subsidies to private equity for distribution. No-one here in the coop but us chickens. https://t.co/7QUVGbUD9F
— David P. Goldman (@davidpgoldman) August 15, 2023
Amazon pinches sellers: Use our costly logistics services or pay extra fee [Updated] ars technica (Kevin W)
We Have a Health Care Crisis: Congress Must Address It Senator Bernie Sanders, YouTube
Falling markets sank global wealth in 2022, leaving the world with 3.5 million fewer millionaires CNN (UserFriendly)
2) My tweet reflecting on the Eugenista couple. pic.twitter.com/b3X6QTbhrx
— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) August 16, 2023
Antidote du jour (Tracie H):
And a bonus (guurst):
Floating water sausage pic.twitter.com/yNtH1od5jf
— In Otter News…. (@In_Otter_News2) August 12, 2023
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.