Links 10/9/2024 | naked capitalism

Wrinkles reveal whether elephants are left- or right-trunked, study finds Guardian (Dr. Kevin)

Witches around the world aeon

Keynes in Dublin Dublin Review of Books (Anthony L)

Everything Is Out of Water: Should a philosopher have sayings? The Point (Anthony L)

Why painting (still) matters New Statesman (Anthony L)

Needles in Haystacks: The Lostwave Story Chris Dalla Riva (Anthony L)

Climate/Environment

Percent of global ocean with September sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of at least 30C (86F). It’s as if something has changed. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/jW1XIztkBN

— Brian Brettschneider (@Climatologist49) October 7, 2024

Climate warning as world’s rivers dry up at fastest rate for 30 years Guardian

Is Arctic methane stoking the climate crisis? Julian Cribb

Greek honey production plummets due to climate change ekathamerini. No baklava?

Britons Urged To Dig Out Unwanted Electricals To Tackle Copper Shortage Guardian

China?

States sue TikTok, saying its addictive features hook children Washington Post

Chinese Stocks Tumble Most Since 2020 on Stimulus Skepticism Bloomberg

Foxconn building Nvidia superchip facility in Mexico, executives say Reuters

China demands schoolteachers hand in their passports Financial Post (Dr. Kevin)

European Disunion

US Navy is said to have been at the scene shortly before Nord Stream was destroyed, Danish newspaper reports Weltwoche via machine translation (Micael T)

New record: More pensioners than ever before are dependent on social assistance NOZ via machine translation (Micael T)

How the European Union passed a brave new law to protect our planet’s forests, only to realise that it is a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare that nobody wants Eugyppius (Micael T)

Old Blighty

Russian spies plan ‘mayhem’ on British streets, warns MI5 chief Financial Times

Israel v. The Resistance

“Daddy, what were you doing when the Gaza Genocide was being carried out?” pic.twitter.com/5ZsUZNKSjZ

— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) October 8, 2024

Investigating war crimes in Gaza I Al Jazeera Investigations YouTube (furzy)

A Year of Slaughter and Starvation Daniel Larison

GAZA AFTER A YEAR OF WAR Seymour Hersh

Northern Gaza is being emptied under the threat of annihilation. 400,000 Palestinians are being forced South towards an overcrowded “safe area” that hosts 1 million displaced people in tents without services, an area 10% of Gaza which Israel has systematically bombed for months. https://t.co/TPzgzTGCAj

— Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) October 9, 2024

* * *

Israel’s Netanyahu warns Lebanon could face destruction ‘like Gaza’ Aljazeera. So now it’s official policy as opposed to an extrapolation from behavior.

For Doubters – Hizbullah Reports That It Is Back Moon of Alabama

Hezbollah says Israel using UN troops as ‘human shields’ in south Lebanon The Cradle (Kevin W)

* * *

Col. Larry Wilkerson: Israel on the Brink of Devastation in War Against Iran and Hezbollah! Dialogue Works, YouTube. Includes important discussion of US and Iran hostilities over the Strait of Hormuz

Iranian ‘Ahmad Chalabis’ Are Helping Israel Plan Bombing of Iran Antiwar.com (Micael T)

Israel looking at $66bn war bill as economic woes deepen The Cradle (Kevin W)

After a year of war, Israel’s unity is shaken and it’s bleeding support RT

Scott Ritter: Israel’s Total Defeat Against Iran and Hezbollah Imminent? Dialogue Works, YouTube. Ritter discusses again how the nuclear test claim idea is unlikely (he still repeats the 10 mile below surface which seems to be wrong, but he has solid information on IAEA inspections and how hard it would be to get around them. Ritter explains that it would not require much testing to deliver a nuclear bomb with a “gun device” as opposed to a missile. See starting at 28:50 for the “gun device”/

New Not-So-Cold War

The Ukrainian Armed Forces are like mushrooms; The Russian army is harvesting Marat Khairullin

The War’s Pivotal Impasse Crystallizes as Russia Cements Negotiation Terms Simplicius (Kevin W). I was too indirect in my post on Lavrov’s interview in Newsweek restating Putin’s terms from June 14. Lavrov made clear he was reaffirming Putin’s position. It’s actually remarkable that Russia is merely sticking to its guns given Kursk. We linked to Anadolu Agency’s write up at the time to show that not only was everything that Lavrov enumerated in the typically long Putin speech, but that Anadolu Agency had then recapped the very same points Lavrov set forth again.

Zelensky cancels November ‘peace summit’ RT (Kevin W)

Ex-NATO Chief Stoltenberg Could Have Prevented Ukraine Conflict, But Fueled It Instead Sputnik

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Smart TVs Are Like ‘a Digital Trojan Horse’ in People’s Homes ars technica. I have always assumed that.

Imperial Collapse Watch

Finally pic.twitter.com/oASTK3vQuZ

— Philip Proudfoot 🇱🇧🇵🇸 (@PhilipProudfoot) October 8, 2024

Trump

Book Raises Unverified Claims About Trump’s Ties to Putin New York Times (Kevin W)

Kamala

Kamala Harris Struggling to Break Through With Working Class, Democrats Fear Wall Street Journal

Harris’s Biden-esque ‘hiding in the basement’ campaign has Dems worried Just the News. Well, after that 60 Minutes interview, hiding looks to be her best option.

Kamala yesterday accused Gov. DeSantis of “playing political games” with the incoming hurricane in Florida.

Today, Biden said that DeSantis “has been cooperative” and is “doing a great job.”

The West Wing appears to be on two completely different wave lengths. pic.twitter.com/Ik5EsgBFJ2

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 8, 2024

Kamala’s True Grit: Harris Embraces a Gun Vilified During the Biden-Harris Administration Jonathan Turley. See also IM Doc in comments to Links yesterday on Glocks.

2024

The Problems With Polls New York Review of Books

Trump and Harris are sharply divided on science, but share common ground on US technology policy The Conversation (Kevin W)

Milton

Millions in Florida told to leave as Biden makes Hurricane Milton ‘life or death’ warning BBC. Where do they go? Sleep in their cars in Walmart parking lots in safer places?

Why experts are so scared of Hurricane Milton The Hill

Timelapse flying by Hurricane Milton about 2 hours ago.

1/6400 sec exposure, 14mm, ISO 500, 0.5 sec interval, 30fps pic.twitter.com/p5wBlC95mx

— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) October 8, 2024

Helene Aftermath

‘The worst I have ever seen’: Disinformation chaos hammers FEMA Politico. Desperate and disgraceful new excuse for censorship. What matters for citizens is if FEMA is getting relief in to afflicted areas. Supposedly false Team R noisemaking about performance will not affect the delivery of aid. What it could hurt is FEMA’s reputation and Kamala’s odds of a win.

Contrast this scapegoating with a report from KLG that Lambert ran yesterday:

My sources have no reason to lie. Perhaps some exaggeration but it all seems too likely to me.

FEMA is a charlie foxtrot, whatever its apologists and administrators say. Almost every person who applies for the $750 is denied. For example, if you have insurance, no $750 because your benevolent insurance company will pay. Yeah, but for many, only after being dragged kicking and screaming to cut the check. An assistant rents her house in rural Georgia. Her losses are real but because she is a renter, no $200 to replace the farm produce and meat lost in her freezer due to a week without electricity. That’s all she asked for. $200B or whatever for Ukraine but no $200 for her. Some areas still do not know when power will be restored. Compared to the mountains of North Carolina, these are the fortunate. This is the message the people are getting…It is likely to get worse when Milton slams into Tampa-St. Pete Wednesday night. Sustained winds back up to 150 mph with 24 hours to go. This can be a killer.

Fact-checking falsehoods about FEMA funding and Hurricane Helene NPR (furzy). Note this claim:

As of Sunday, FEMA says it has provided more than $137 million in assistance to six states in the southeast, including 7,000 federal personnel, nearly 15 million meals, 14 million liters of water, 157 generators and more than half a million tarps.

$137 million is couch lint relative to the scale of this disaster. Lambert also points out he’d expect to see stories about FEMA relief arriving by now, and he has seen nothing on his large set of feeds. Not that we can prove a negative or near negative, but….

Hurricane Helene is America’s Chernobyl moment Unherd (Anthony L)

I assume this sort of thing is also what the wannbe censors are upset about. But this piece does quote FEMA documents and uses one of their videos: Survival of the Wokest Lau Vegys

Watchdog found $7B in untapped FEMA funds — even though DHS Secretary Mayorkas said none available for future disasters New York Post

US lawmakers dig into FCC’s $900M Starlink snub in wake of Hurricane Helene The Register

Our No Longer Free Press

The Think Tank Campaigning to Censor Satire Reclaim the Net (Micael T)

Never Forget Mark Wauk (Micael T)

Antitrust

Epic Triumphs as Judge Orders Google to Open the Android Gates Reclaim the Net (Micael T)

Class Warfare

Automation is Called “Productivity Growth” Dean Baker, Counterpunch

Cognizant Discriminated Against Non-Indian Workers, US Jury Says Bloomberg

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (Robin K):

They definitely thought that its one of them 😂 pic.twitter.com/zz4F1K0kTJ

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) October 6, 2024

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.