Links 9/7/2023 | naked capitalism

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I dunno. I published this Links early too! Mercury-in-retrograde seems unusually powerful this year. Sorry! –lambert

The Revolutionary Influence of the First English Children’s Novel Smithsonian

The incredible American consumer FT

Climate

The $100tn path to net zero FT

Big oil companies are spending millions to appear ‘green.’ Their investments tell a different story, report shows CNN

Vast Majority Of Investors Are Willing To Sacrifice Returns For ESG Goals Dealbreaker. If indeed they must.

How a mere 12% of Americans eat half the nation’s beef, creating significant health and environmental impacts Phys.org. We think of the Bell Curve as ubiquitious, but power curves are too (and too rarely mentioned).

Water

Heating Waters Force Change in Industries That Depend on the Ocean WSJ

Why you should give a damn about America’s dams The Hill

#COVID19

Outpatient treatment of COVID-19 and incidence of post-COVID-19 condition over 10 months (COVID-OUT): a multicentre, randomised, quadruple-blind, parallel-group, phase 3 trial The Lancet. From the Abstract: “Outpatient treatment with metformin reduced long COVID incidence by about 41%, with an absolute reduction of 4·1%, compared with placebo. Metformin has clinical benefits when used as outpatient treatment for COVID-19 and is globally available, low-cost, and safe.”

Novavax’s updated XBB.1.5 vaccine shows promising cross-neutralizing antibodies against new COVID-19 variants (preprint) News Medical Life Sciences. Not mRNA: “a more traditional vaccine that uses moth cells and tree bark.”

Previous COVID infection, side effects top reasons cited for not getting 2-strain booster Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy

China?

China’s Credit Wreck Exposes Governance Failings to the World Bloomberg

Why are China’s workers studying ‘Xi Jinping Thought’? Al Jazeera

How BYD snatched Tesla’s crown Rest of World

Myanmar

Military, Chinese preparations underway to open Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone and deep sea port Myanmar Now

Myanmar Junta Jails Journalist for 20 Years Over Cyclone Coverage The Irrawaddy

G20

G20 agrees membership for African Union on par with EU Reuters

No Delhi Declaration? West Rejects India’s Compromise Text at G20 Sherpas Meeting The Wire

Is India changing its name to Bharat? G20 invite controversy explained Channel News Asia

Never Say Never to an Asian NATO Foreign Policy

India

India’s fertility rate faces sharp decline amid rising concern over lifestyle factors, infertility Channel News Asia

Africa

What we are witnessing in Africa is not an anti-colonial revolution Al Jazeera

Syraqistan

Former Mossad chief Pardo claims Israel is enforcing ‘apartheid’ system in West Bank Times of Israel

European Disunion

German Manufacturing Orders Tumbled by More Than Expected in July WSJ (DC).

A Cloistered France Harper’s

The Spanish Impasse New Left Review

Dear Old Blighty

The ‘angry young man’ who fought to save London’s architectural soul The Telegraph

New Not-So-Cold War

Blinken hails ‘real progress’ in Ukrainian counteroffensive Anadolu Agency

Zelenskyy’s fourth defence minister: why the president is replacing Oleksii Reznikov with Rustem Umierov Ukrainska Pravda

* * *

Andrey Melnichenko: ‘It’s pointless to talk about good and evil’ FT

Crime and punishment The Economist (!). The deck: “Its agents have become expert in dark revenge. But some worry a clear strategy is absent.”

* * *

Russia’s Eastern Policy: Old Restrictions and New Conditions Valdai Discussion Club

South of the Border

Two Women To Vie For Mexican Presidency In 2024 Agence France Presse

Biden Administration

Biden administration cancels remaining oil and gas leases in Alaska’s Arctic Refuge AP

The shutdown threat would be off the table, under newly proposed legislation Government Executive

2024

Trump says he will ‘absolutely’ take the stand and testify in his own defense FOX

Biden Extends Sizeable Lead Over RFK Jr. Among Democratic Primary Voters Morning Consult. Stability in the headline, volatility in the text.

Spook Country

Docs Offer Glimpse Inside Censorship Industrial Complex RealClearPolitics

B-a-a-a-d Banks

Real-Estate Doom Loop Threatens America’s Banks WSJ

WeWork tells landlords it will renegotiate most office leases FT

Tech

What OpenAI Really Wants Wired

The plan for AI to eat the world Politico. Commentary on the above.

* * *

Exclusive survey: Experts favor new U.S. agency to govern AI Axios

The Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine and AI regulation Brookings Institution

The Bezzle

I’m so sorry for psychology’s loss, whatever it is Experimental History. One for KLG.

Supply Chain

Mind the Gap On wooden pallets.

C. L. R. James’s Radical Vision of Common Humanity Boston Review

Class Warfare

Biden hails West Coast ports union deal as potential auto strike looms The Hill

Labor Could Be Detroit’s Next Big Disruption WSJ

* * *

‘It’s slavery for modern times’: how children of 12 toil in Colorado’s fields Guardian

Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs ‘breeding ground’ for contemporary forms of slavery: UN expert Anadolu Agency

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Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness PNAS. A cluster-randomized controlled trial.

A surprising account for such a message:

This is Moca. He just learned some people think unions cause strikes and not the immense greed of corporations that refuse to pay employees a fair share despite owing the entirety of their profits to the labor of working people. 14/10 pic.twitter.com/NpKhOmRCB2

— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) September 6, 2023

My Horny Raccoon Roommate and Me Hell Gate. N entirely SFW. But a testimony to the life force….

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

Double bonus antidote (Desert dog):

Desert dog writes:

My daughter sent this from Springfield, MO.

We discovered Monarch caterpillars in our side rock garden.

I was perplexed because I know monarchs only eat milkweed. Then I discovered the vine that I kept pulling out of the beds was actually a milkweed vine. That’s what it shows here in these pictures and the larva are feeding on them.

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.