What Would Becky Buy? Los Angeles Review of Books. Anthony L: “I think I lost my faith when they started bringing acoustic guitars into the Mass.”
Operation Nietzsche Commonweal Magazine (Anthony L)
Superfast diamond-laced computer chips now much closer to reality thanks to ‘quantum breakthrough’ LiveScience
Newsom takes aim at dyes and ultraprocessed foods, long criticized by RFK Jr. Washington Examiner
#COVID-19/Pandemics
‘Very different to COVID-19’: What to know about the HMPV outbreak in China SBS Australia (Kevin W)
Health officials downplayed COVID risk by overemphasizing “underlying health conditions,” leading many to drop their guard.
Most people have “underlying health conditions.” Anyone can be vulnerable. Everyone should take precautions.
They are minimizing bird flu in the same way.
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) January 7, 2025
Long COVID Breakthrough: Spike Proteins Persist in Brain for Years(German study/earlier post)
but now with a New Year’s disappointment for anti-vaxxers:
“Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine significantly reduces the accumulation of spike protein in the brain.”https://t.co/IOo8VMwJt7
— Harry Spoelstra (@HarrySpoelstra) January 6, 2025
Climate/Environment
Biden Bans New Oil and Gas Drilling Along Most U.S. Coasts New York Times (Kevin W)
China?
“China is starting to offer developing countries subsidized access to scarce chips, and it’s promising to build local AI data centers,” Smith wrote. “The Chinese wisely recognize that if a country standardizes on China’s AI platform, it likely will continue to rely on that…
— Paul Triolo (@pstAsiatech) January 3, 2025
China to Curb Exports of Lithium Battery Tech Oilprice
Chinese ship ‘severs undersea cables around Taiwan’ Telegraph
A bond bubble is developing in Chinese financial markets and regulators are scrambling to contain it and defuse the underlying causes interest.co.nz
Koreas
Deadline for arrest of suspended South Korean president enters final day France24
North Korea fires ballistic missile as Blinken visits Seoul Independent
Africa
We’ve all seen Macron’s recent strategy of positioning himself as the provider of ‘straight talk’ and ‘unfiltered truth’ regarding the relationship between African nations and France. Clearly, he’s targeting a specific audience in the international community. But if African…
— RDC ElokoYaMakasi (@botelema) January 6, 2025
Too many ways to die: inside Sudan’s forgotten war The Times
O Canada
Trudeau’s exit starts clock on leadership race Globe and Mail
Woke Elvis Resigns Matt Taibbi (Robin K)
Another One Down: Anti-Globalist Maelstrom Sweeps Away Trudeau as Larger Storm Looms Simplicius. Right at the top, this piece propagates a widespread misperception about the effect of Trudeau’s resignation. It will set off a new leadership contest in the Liberal Party. It will NOT lead to new elections. Trudeau resigned to forestall that. So all this discussion of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre as Prime Minster is wildly premature. See again this tweet that Conor posted yesterday:
If Trudeau resigns, it’s to stop the non-confidence vote, and an interim leader will come in, maybe Freeland, and the Liberals will hold on to power until the election on October 27th, 2025.
About 80 MP’s pensions count on it.
Reminds me of 1993 Kim Campbell when Mulroney left. https://t.co/4bAsVqQP8P
— Jason Lavigne (@JasonLavigneAB) January 6, 2025
Trump reacts to Trudeau resignation: ‘Many people in Canada LOVE being the 51st State’ Fox (Kevin W)
European Disunion
How Trump will expose Europe’s weakness Wolfgang Munchau, Unherd
Elon Musk’s European political meddling is ‘worrying,’ says Norway’s PM Politico
Emmanuel Macron joins growing criticism of Elon Musk in Europe Guardian. Never fight with a pig…not that I think much of Macron, but he should know that paying attention to Musk increases Musk’s stature.
Europe’s Summer Will Bring Worries About Next Winter’s Gas Bloomberg
Farmers’ convoys head for Paris to restart protest movement Reuters
Wake up Mats Persson – the companies are going bankrupt Aftonbladet via machine translation. Micael T: “‘Almost every fourth young person is therefore without a job in Sweden. And the only thing we have seen from Labor Market Minister Mats Persson (L) is that he appeared in Aktuellt at the end of November and said that the unemployed are lazy.’ Neoliberalism Rule #2 – go die!”
Denmark Decides to Change National Emblem Ahead of Trump Jr.’s Visit to Greenland TopWar (Micael T). I cannot verify, but if true, this shows the degree to which Trump is living rent free in some people’s brains.
Old Blighty
Starmer attacks spread of ‘lies’ on grooming gangs as he hits back at Musk BBC. Lead story in UK edition. Nowhere on the landing page, even when you scroll down, on the bbc.com edition.
Elon Musk turns on Nigel Farage and calls for new leader of Reform Guardian. I expect Musk’s interventions to backfire somewhat to bigly. Voters do not like rich foreigners telling them who to support.
This is going to be the worst year for restaurants ever Telegraph
Israel v. The Resistance
Is Gaza REALLY Gone? Norman Finkelstein Answers. India & Global Left, YouTube. Finkelstein for some time has been saying that the Palestinians in Gaza had lost, when that was a decidedly minority view among opponents of Israel’s genocide
Economic Protests in Several Iranian Cities: “Enough Warmongering, Our Tables Are Empty” Iran Focus
New Not-So-Cold War
What Does Russia mean by, “Demilitarize and Denazify?” Larry Johnson
Thousands without heating in Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region, after Russian gas supplies cut CNN. Note the lack of agency. It was Ukraine that turned off the gas.
Turkiye
Turkey’s carrier battlegroup takes shape Asia Times (Kevin W)
Syraqistan
Syria monitor: 101 killed in battles between pro-Turkey, Kurdish forces France24
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Apple auto-opts everyone into having their photos analyzed by AI for landmarks The Register (Paul R). Confirming my reflex to never never never never never never log in to Apple ID (as in synch to their cloud) or update any OS until absolutely necessary. I cannot stand this business model that equipment I buy outright is treated as jointly owned by the vendor.
Used Meta AI to edit a selfie, now instagram is using my face on ads targeted at me reddit (Paul R)
Imperial Collapse Watch
Global Economy Braces for 1930s-Style Unilateralism Bloomberg
US staggers into 2025 buffeted by week of attacks and looming political violence Guardian
Please click through to read the full tweet (hat tip Chuck L). This could as easily be a Class Warfare item, but it illustrates how systems and processes are breaking down and how people are getting chewed up as a result:
How badly broken is the Department of Transportation? Worse than even I imagined.
Today, a maritime academy classmate with called me and said, “one hand” – the secret ship captain signal for “I need immediate help”. His voice was raw. This wasn’t about the sea—it was about his…
— John Ʌ Konrad V (@johnkonrad) January 5, 2025
U.S. Postal Service worker fatally stabbed inside New York City deli, reportedly over food dispute NBC. More loss of impulse control. We see this at the top of the food chain with the new normal of talk/news show hosts talking over or even yelling down guests
Trump 2.0
Yanis Varoufakis: What to watch for in 2025 – Trump, the US dollar, and China YouTube
A battle is brewing over tariffs among Trump’s team CNN (Kevin W)
Trump backs massive single bill for taxes, border and energy Politico
“BadAss Grandmas” Pushed for an Ethics Commission. Then the North Dakota Legislature Limited Its Power. ProPublica (Robin K)
Immigration
Even the best Computer Science graduates with a 4.0 GPA can’t get a job in tech pic.twitter.com/9sqzJznEV7
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) January 2, 2025
Our No Longer Free Press
U.S. District Judge rejects “Jews at Haverford” lawsuit over alleged antisemitism on college campus:
“I reject Plaintiff’s embedded proposition that any anti-Israel speech is intrinsically antisemitic, because reasonable people acting in good faith can challenge decisions of the… https://t.co/xDqGtERoo1
— AIPAC Tracker (@TrackAIPAC) January 6, 2025
Paper Cuts Washington Post. More layoffs.
Collapsing Empire: RIP CIA Front’s ‘Overt Operations’ Kit Klarenberg:
In recent months, a remarkable development in the Empire’s decline has gone almost entirely unnoticed. The National Endowment for Democracy’s grant database has been removed from the web. Until recently, a searchable interface allowed visitors to view detailed records of Washington-funded NGOs, civil society groups, and media projects in particular countries – covering most of the world – the sums involved, and entities responsible for delivering these initiatives. This resource has now inexplicably vanished, and with it, enormous amounts of incontrovertible, self-incriminating evidence of destructive US skullduggery abroad.
The Bezzle
Where the next financial crisis could emerge Financial Times. The unknown here is how much is held by investors who are payment systems players (banks, securities firm) v. big investors like pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. If virtually all the latter, the result of large losses or failure of these funds to pay out would be zombification due to loss of fund wealth and thus income/assets of end beneficiaries. If there is non-trivial payment systems/dealer exposure (say via some of these deep pockets providing financial guarantees that proved to be no good due to losses on private debt funds), then we could see a good old fashioned crisis.
More on the above topic: Easy money from risky loans. What could go wrong? Seattle Times
Tesla is now fighting for its future Telegraph
Class Warfare
Americans are taught FDR was the hero of the Great Depression. For one historian, that’s erasure Guardian (Kevin W)
I’m a subject matter expert in a couple different fields and highly capable in numerous others, all essential to private and public sector stability and economic security.
My network is strong and my performance speaks for itself.
Yet, it is still an absolute grind to hustle… https://t.co/GKE0vR2JEE
— HUNTSMAN 🏴☠️ (@maphumanintent) January 6, 2025
Antidote du jour (Tracie H):
And a bonus (guurst):
Где же носит твою мать маленький храбрый воин.😲 pic.twitter.com/y3KOuLq38X
— Просто Женя… (@ehbymuY80nTJqxe) January 1, 2025
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
