Yves here. No original posts by me today due to connectivity issues. My regular service is down, my freestanding hotspot does not work on the 12th floor, and I have never been able to make my iPhone work as a hotspot. I go through all the usual steps and either the computer does not attempt to connect to the phone even though it sees it or it does and then says “Connection rejected” when I never got a query on the phone and have enabled Personal Hotspot. I even tried plugging the phone into the computer and authorizing the USB connection for sharing and that did not work either. Fortunately the regular internet did come back but I spun wheels when it was down trying to make my various backups work. And yes, I had difficulty making Personal Hotspot work in the US too.
Sperm Whales Live in Huge, Distinct Clans Spread Across The Ocean Science Alert (Chuck L)
As males evolve to have better weapons, females develop bigger brains National Geographic (Chuck L)
What is the world’s loveliest language? Economist (Dr. Kevin)
Expert Reveals What Happens to Your Liver When You Quit Alcohol ScienceAlert (Chuck L)
New Evidence Highlights a Serious Flaw in Our Perception of Autism Science Alert (Chuck L).
I dunno, looks like Darwin Award futures to me:
People in Salthill waters in Galway, Ireland today during Storm Isha.
Eejits!!
🎥 @galwaytourism #StormIsha pic.twitter.com/aR2U7diBdh
— Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) January 21, 2024
How Much of the World Is It Possible to Model? New Yorker (furzy)
Why We Should All Read Hannah Arendt Now Literary Hub (DLG)
#COVID-19
Let’s talk #DeathTrajectories 🧵
One of the biases in #PublicHealth policy is the focus on acute COVID deaths. It’s a lagging indicator and only covers 1 of 5 common death trajectories.
For COVID, people imagine the upper left. Get COVID, then a quick death.1/7 pic.twitter.com/rAWInGlpy9
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) January 23, 2024
Why don’t COVID tests seem to work as well as they used to? Bloomberg (Robin K)
It’s consistently disappointing that articles like this refuse to point out the most obvious answer: When governments push out propaganda that COVID is mild, and the pandemic is over, that is understandably going to lead to lower vaccination rates. https://t.co/sBEefvzK3V
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) January 23, 2024
Climate/Environment. Notice how the terrible geopolitical situation has crowded out this news category?
Cold Weather Has Increased Range Anxiety For EV Drivers OilPrice
‘Won’t give up’ is a new anthem for the climate movement Yale Climate Connections. This is supposed to be inspiring? The staging of the video makes it look too much like a love song? There are plenty of models for music meant to inspire in the face of struggle, such as Jerusalem, Les Miz’s “Can You Hear the People Sing?” or on the less big choral end of the spectrum, Wait for Me from Hadestown
China?
EU to ringfence more high tech areas from China Asia Times (Kevin W)
China is adding more renewable energy capacity than the rest of world combined.
The International Energy Agency reports China will account for 56% of renewable energy capacity additions in 2023-28.
China will increase capacity by 2,060 GW. The rest of Earth will add 1,574 GW.… pic.twitter.com/u1ISxYyUi5
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 23, 2024
India
In Ayodhya, Modi Opens Ram Temple in Triumph for Hindu Nationalists New York Times (furzy)
Old Blighty
Sunak’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda receives first parliamentary defeat Guardian (Kevin W). I wish this were from Daily Mash but it’s real.
European Disunion
Federal Office of Statistics Exports to the USA and China are collapsing Tagesschau via machine translation (guurst)
Gaza
‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 108: Israel is systematically obliterating Gaza, section by section Mondoweiss
Israel’s war on Gaza live: 24 Israeli troops killed as ground battles rage Aljazeera
Israeli forces storm hospital in Gaza’s bloodiest fighting so far in 2024 Sydney Morning Herald (Kevin W)
Israeli hostages’ families storm Knesset meeting to demand their return Guardian (Kevin W)
U.S. Claims No Alternative To Larger Middle East War Moon of Alabama (Kevin W)
US, British militaries launch new round of joint strikes against multiple Houthi sites in Yemen Arab News
This will be interesting: China – one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – calls for full membership for Palestine at the UN.
The question is: will the US, also one of the five, veto it? This will test their sincerity with regards to actually wanting a… https://t.co/H2xMTTeZHj
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) January 22, 2024
My Letter to the International Court of Justice Sam Husseini. Hussieni seems to have found a “gotcha” on the dispute dispute that we discussed at length yesterday. However, South Africa did not include the incident in its filing, and one can see why. The South African who accused Israel was a senior member of the ANC, not a member of the government, so he cannot speak for South Africa. The other reason for the dressing down was South Africa having made a referral to the ICC over various war crimes…but not genocide, at that point. And remember, the ICC prosecutes only individuals, not states. Again, (since no one seems to have the bandwidth for nuance these days) I am not saying the ICJ will find for Israel on this point. But South Africa does not have a slam-dunk case on this issue, and worse misrepresented some of its citations of evidence, plus the ICJ has reasons not to set the bar too low here. As Aurelien pointed out in an e-mail we quoted in comments to our post:
So the real issue is whether the statements by (and not necessarily exchanges between) SA and Israel before the ICJ hearing are sufficient to show that the sides held “clearly opposite views.” As you say, this seems a bit flaky, but the Court might decide that nonetheless, any reasonable person would conclude that the two states did, in fact, disagree on the issue.
So it seems to me that, if it wanted to, the Court could argue that a point of law was involved (fulfillment of obligations under the Convention) and that the two countries held clearly different views, and that therefore the ICJ had the jurisdiction to decide who was right. Of course, how they would do that, and whether it’s even possible, are other questions.
That said, what bothers me about this argument is that all of the cases mentioned in the [exhaustive] paper [on ICJ’s handling of the “dispute” question] (and all the ICJ cases I know of) have been about something which divides the two sides, who have a common interest in resolving the problem in their favour. The classics are things like boundary disputes, commercial disputes, reparations etc., where the two sides have an obvious practical interest in the facts of the situation. That’s not the case here, as far as I can see: there is no way in which SA can claim in the slightest degree to have a practical interest in whether genocide is occurring in Gaza. I think the SA team recognised this because they talk about the prevention of genocide being part of ius cogens, ie peremptory international legal norms, and all states having a responsibility to all other states (in this case, presumably Palestine.) The weakness of this argument of course, is that any state could accuse any other state of genocide, and argue that there was a dispute, and that the ICJ should make a ruling. The possibilities for mischief and chaos are endless. Whether the ICJ will want to go into this argument I have no idea.
This “mischief” potential may be a reason, if not the reason, that Norman Finkelstein thought Russia and China might be leery of finding for South Africa, despite their otherwise obvious interest in discrediting the US and being on the side of stopping heinous conduct in Gaza. Think of what the implications might be for China regarding allegations of genocide vis-a-vis the Uighurs….
Israel drops leaflets on under-siege Palestinians asking for their help to find Israeli hostages, as Gaza death toll hits 25,000 Business Insider (BC)
Irish Government will ‘consider’ joining genocide case against Israel after preliminary stage The Journal (BC)
A Hannibal Directive by Any Other Name Brad Pearce (Userfriendly)
Why Israel’s Violence Gets So Much Notice (It’s Not Antisemitism) Intercept (Dr. Kevin)
Jewish Scholars vs. Jewish Donors on Antisemitism Ken Silverman
New Not-So-Cold War
Rats and mice swarm trenches in Ukraine in grisly echo of World War I CNN (Henry L)
Reports That Zelensky Sacked Zaluzhny as Head of the AFU & Replaced Him with the Head of the GUR Kyrylo Budanov. Military Sitrep – Kiev’s Defenses in South Avdeevka Collapse Mark Sleboda
US forming ‘colonial administration’ in Ukraine – Russian spy chief RT
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
How a 27-Year-Old Codebreaker Busted the Myth of Bitcoin’s Anonymity Wired (fk)
Meta Now Lets EU Users Unlink Their Facebook, Messenger and Instagram Accounts Neowin
IT Consultant Fined For Daring To Expose Shoddy Security The Register
Imperial Collapse Watch
New Miss America eager to “bomb the shit out of the enemies of America” DuffelBlog (BC)
How VC is busting the Military Industrial Complex — for its own benefit Responsible Statescraft (Kevin W)
Why Are Almost 40 Percent of US Nuclear Attack Subs Out of Service? Sputnik (Kevin W)
No Dhowt Willian Schreyer
1/6
The Pipe-bomb Caper James Howard Kunstler (Kevin W)
2024
Why Biden won’t be on the ballot in New Hampshire The Hill
Fake Biden robocall tells Democrats to skip New Hampshire primary CBS (furzy)
DeSantis, R.I.P.
How DeSantis collapsed in the glare of a presidential campaign Politico (furzy)
What DeSantis got wrong about the media—and the media got wrong about DeSantis Columbia Journalism Review
GOP Clown Car
After Mike Johnson Advanced Israel Aid Package, AIPAC Cash Flowed In Intercept (Dr. Kevin)
Abortion
Miscarried in Texas. My Doctors Put Abortion Law First Newsweek (furzy). I hate to be a cynic. But as a daily press watcher, there has been a falloff in abortion horror stories in recent months, despite there being no reason to think the number of underlying abortion horror stories having fallen. Abortion is the best card Team Dem now has to play against Team R, so expect to see an uptick in what the press should have been covering all along.
Immigration
Razor wire at the border: Supreme Court says feds can remove barriers in Texas meant to block migrants USA Today
Immigration overtakes inflation as top voter concern: Poll The Hill
NEW- President Biden was asked if he believed that the border was secure; “No it’s not, I haven’t believed it for the last 10 years, and I’ve said it for the last 10 years. Give me the money.” pic.twitter.com/jrxpklRlck
— Overton (@OvertonLive) January 21, 2024
AI
AI apocalypse too soon Asia Times (Kevin W)
Humans Still Cheaper Than AI in Vast Majority of Jobs, MIT Finds Bloomberg
“People with money are using AI and robots like their new slaves” dezeen
Falling Apart (Not Just) Boeing Airplanes
NYC-bound flight canceled when passenger notices missing bolts on plane wing Fox (Chuck L, Paul R)
Kayak’s New Flight Filter Allows You to Exclude Aircraft Models From Your Results reddit (Paul R)
The Bezzle
Facebook made a major change after years of PR disasters, and news sites are paying the price CNBC
I’ve worked in a bank (10yrs), a hedge fund (6yrs) and in HFTs (4yrs). Two things:
1. Yes, I’m old
2. You be amazed – stunned – by the number of premium name counterparties whose polished branding and external image belies a myriad of internal ‘systems’ that are held together…
— Tim Meggs (@TimMeggs) January 21, 2024
Guillotine Watch
Bill Ackman Is a Brilliant Fictional Character Atlantic (Lance N). ZOMG this is terrific. Non-paywalled version here.
Class Warfare
The Economists Who Found the Richest People of All Time New Republic (Micael T)
Why employees no longer feel loyalty towards their bosses, employers Business Insider. Lordie, look at the explicit expectation, that workers should be loyal. The only reason is pragmatic: so as not to weaken the enterprise (say by leaking confidential information) and therefore harm their job security. Otherwise, employers have no reason to expect or demand that workers do more than perform their assigned duties diligently. If bosses or companies are paternalistic, then it might be reasonable to expect some reciprocation. But how often do you see that these days?
Homeless brave cold in Paris as France plans to move them out of city before Olympics Anadolu Agency
Antidote du jour:
And a bonus (Chuck L):
Roadblock in Tanzania.. pic.twitter.com/TlJ0z83Fd5
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) January 22, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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