Does Morality Do Us Any Good? The New Yorker (Anthony L). Yes, it often makes decisions easier. And you also typically create fewer enemies.
Spaces between the Stars London Review of Books (Anthony L). On Kubrick.
The torture of an unphilosophical life Unherd
FDA Rethinks Phenylephrine Cold Remedies Effectiveness Naveen Sankar
Milan, from January 1st absolute ban on smoking outdoors L’Unione Sarda
#COVID/Pandemics
Covid Pregnancies May Have Boosted Autism Risk, Study Shows Bloomberg (ma)
Climate/Environment
Hochul Signs Law That Penalizes Companies for Greenhouse Gas Emissions New York Times. Lambert ran a similar story yesterday. Over my pay grade, but I don’t see how this survives a legal challenge. Trying to say this is like the Superfund law, of discrete actions that caused damage that could be traced to a particular perp, does not make it so.
China?
China pushes ahead with huge — and controversial — dam in Tibet Washington Post
Will China let the yuan go in 2025? Asia Times (Kevin W)
Trump asks Supreme Court to pause TikTok ban, while Biden admin says app poses ‘grave’ threat CNN (Kevin W)
Temu’s Takeover Is Now Complete Wired (Kevin W)
India
India: It’s Worse Than You Think American Renaissance (Li). Hoo boy. I am certain a lot of readers will take issue.
Israel v. The Resistance
We told ya… The real goal is more land grab.
“We won’t let them rebuild [Gaza]… Nothing moves, and what moves – dies. That’s all. And is attacked and annihilated”
Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich pic.twitter.com/cMKpXKuT6C
— Abier (@abierkhatib) December 26, 2024
Children are freezing to death in Gaza Mondoweiss (guurst)
Soldiers and tanks surrounding the last barely functioning medical facility in northern Gaza, readying to empty it after targeting it for more than two months. https://t.co/xqq4wEOfFl
— Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) December 27, 2024
WHO chief says he was at Yemen airport which Israeli strikes targeted CNN (Kevin W)
Houthis claim to have targeted Ben Gurion airport after Israel hits Sana’a Guardian (Kevin W). FWIW, Ben Gurion regularly takes military flights, so it is a legitimate target.
New Not-So-Cold War
NO NATO, NEVER NATO👇
For us, it doesn’t matter whether it’s one year or ten years.
❗️Biden once proposed to simply postpone Ukraine’s NATO membership, if that is also Trump’s plan, it will also not be acceptable — Putin pic.twitter.com/1IUdIgrzrJ
— Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil (@ivan_8848) December 26, 2024
Taras Chmut: We have chaos in the military command Ukrainska Pravda
EU state threatens Ukraine with power cuts RT (Kevin W)
Plane crash in Kazakhstan was due to ‘physical, technical external interference’: Azerbaijan Airlines early findings Anadolu Agency
Leaderless Uprising in Georgia? Sopo Japardze
Syraqistan
Syria will never be unified Edward Luttwak, Unherd
A Requiem For Ba’athism (Part 1 of 2) Niccolo Soldo
Turkish analyst taken off air after calling for killing Syrian Kurdish militants on BBC Turkish Minute
Behind Afghanistan’s Fall, U.S.-Backed Militias Worse Than the Taliban New York Times (Kevin W)
Chuck L:”Haven’t seen any confirmation as yet but it’s something to watch.” Moi: Big if true.
Nuclear attack in Tartus (Syria):
Radioactive fingerprint of nuke (Tartus) measured in Cyprus within ~16 hours after the attack.
[Note that the dose rate peak cannot be ascribed to precipitation as higher precipitation occurred on Dec 5 with no discernible radiation increase] pic.twitter.com/HPWDNn96gW— Hans-Benjamin Braun (@Ben68638515) December 23, 2024
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Former NSA cyberspy’s not-so-secret hobby: Hacking Christmas lights The Register
Imperial Collapse Watch
The West Dismantles Itself: Liberalism in Theory and Practice György Varga, Nachdenkseiten via machine translation (Micael T)
Why world’s economic powers could find 2025 a year of great struggle South China Morning Post
1/6
Inside how the Capitol Police has changed since Jan. 6, 2021 Politico (Kevin W)
Trump 2.0
TRUMP REDUX New Left Review
From Panama Canal to Greenland, Trump defines a ‘new geography’ for American security Just the News. Yes, Trump wants his pony, just the way Biden wanted his pony of regime-changing Russia.
Trump’s Tariff Threats Are Setting Off a Global Supply Chain ‘Freakout’ Bloomberg
Trump’s Plans to Scrap Climate Policies Has Unnerved Green Energy Investors New York Times (Kevin W)
Democrats en déshabillé
Immigration
Shortsighted tech bros seek to leave American STEM talent even further behind. Jordan Schacthel (Micael T). Lambert says the Twitterverse fight of the MAGA types v. the Musk/Vivek fans is impressive and the MAGA crowd is making very good arguments….including ones that come very close to the commodification of labor.
1. I led the drafting of legislation in the Trump ‘45 White House to create a new legal immigration framework. I saw firsthand what happens when ANY visa reform is proposed: executives from the biggest multinationals and lobbyists from all kinds of industries are banging on the… https://t.co/5M4B1pyzn0
— Theo Wold (@RealTheoWold) December 26, 2024
Our No Longer Free Press
CNN Loses Chunks of Viewership as Ratings Dive Into Death Spiral Sputnik
Kari Lake sparks concerns at Voice of America The Hill. As if there isn’t “partisan meddling” now?
Sports Desk
Why college football is becoming harder to love Seattle Times (Robin K)
Mr. Market is Moody
Antitrust
Microsoft Bundling Practices Focus of Federal Antitrust Probe ProPublica
AI
Microsoft Is Forcing Its AI Assistant on People – And Making Them Pay Wall Street Journal. BWAHAHA. This is why I bought my Microsoft rather than subscribing over the objections of my tech woman.
Nothing Is Sacred: AI Generated Slop Has Come for Christmas Music 404 Media (Micael T)
Chinese Firm Trains Massive AI Model for Just $5.5 Million TechCrunch
How to fix computing’s AI energy problem: run everything backwards New Scientist (Dr. Kevin)
The Bezzle
Even Apple Wasn’t Able To Make VR Headsets Mainstream in 2024 ProPublica
Guillotine Watch
The Game Theory of Giving Up Private Justice or Ending The State Monopoly On Violence Ian Welsh (Micael T)
What’s life like in the Brooklyn jail where Mangione awaits trial? Really bad, experts say. Gothamist. MDC is famously horrible.
Class Warfare
The irony of Vivek’s post is that his wrong analysis of how American culture is broken illustrates in itself how American culture is broken.
I mean, how out-of-touch must one be to think people will embrace a vision where childhood must be optimized for corporate success, with… https://t.co/faegwIztXi
— Arnaud Bertrand (@RnaudBertrand) December 27, 2024
The Global Fertility Trade: A Story of Extraction, Exploitation and Opportunity Bloomberg (ma)
‘Living proof that you can spend money on the poor’: Utopia comes to Mexico City Guardian (Allen K)
US homelessness up 18% as affordable housing remains out of reach for many people Associated Press
Flying Was Already the Worst. Then America Stopped Using Headphones. Wall Street Journal
If you have time for leisure viewing: Sandel and Piketty Parts 1-3, YouTube. Robin K:
Part 1:
https://youtu.be/WTW1Eoec4Ew?si=U-sSwZ4Rx8J7rYKn
Part 2:
https://youtu.be/yclCoWrvp-M?si=IgF-bOs2fRviS-vD
Part 3:
https://youtu.be/iv4379S4tVg?si=QKGTsGamL9h0YLOE
Piketty’s ethereal vision of globalism–a united states of the world with progressive taxation–and Sandel’s identitarianism make for an oddly interesting exchange. Sandel comes off better when he just asks questions. When he tries to expound, he blathers, repetitive and incoherent. Piketty stays on track with a clear defense of leftist political economy.
Major takeaway: big money is all about globalism with free movement of capital and, um, free trade, while relying on those who get left behind to fight one another at borders over free movement of labor, i.e., either by being emigrants or anti-immigration nationalists. Buffet nailed: there is class warfare and his class is winning.
Antidote du jour (Tim H):
And a bonus (Chuck L):
A rare African black leopard under the stars – a photo that took the photographer 6 months to capture Credit: Will Burrard-Lucas pic.twitter.com/LYDt7viwBo
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 25, 2024
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
