Hikikomori, the phenomenon of extreme Japanese social isolation is spreading the world of ZMEScience
Other Cleopatra ion
climate/environment
What 5,000-year-old skeletons tell us about coexisting with grist climate change
Water
Expert: $225 Million Needed to Replace Over 35,000 Lead Water Pipes at RI WPRI
Early results of lead testing show worrying levels in some Delaware school drinking water per Delaware News Journal
Des Moines Water Works recommends thousands of KCCI lead pipes be replaced
Flint residents urged to filter water as bottled water donations end amid ongoing water crisis ABC News
#COVID-19
This will work fine. Vaccine strategy only, but like, now as if COVID is seasonal. https://t.co/9QmEQCuJtb
– T. Ryan Gregory (@TRyanGregory) January 23, 2023
Damage to the immune system after infection.
thread 🧵
Here are a handful of papers that impair immunity persists post-Covid.
Let’s refer to them hereafter as “The Monroe Files”.
without reason.#MunroFiles– Raffy Flynn (@RaffyFlynnArt) January 23, 2023
Syracuse
US and Israel begin largest military exercise ever as Iran nuclear talks falter, “Al-Monitor”
Old blighty
BBC boss helped Boris Johnson secure $990,000 loan before winning a job Deadline reports
Real-time map of Thames water confirms raw sewage discharge Guardian
India
BBC abuses freedom of the press to wage hybrid war on India Andrew Korybko
China?
Good news, world! You can stop worrying about the South China Sea! China matters
In overstating China’s military spending, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis broke all statistical rules with a misleading graph of geopolitical economy.
China is tightening its grip on the dominant LNG buyer with long-term deals on the Nikkei Asia Index
European secession
Five defendants in second alleged far-right plot against German government The Guardian
Can Serbia survive the EU’s economic ultimatum? Branko Milanovic, Serbian Observatory
If the European Union does not democratize, Jacobin will collapse
A new cold war
#to update – Heads of military and civil administration in Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson provinces will resign – Ukranska Pravda https://t.co/XdG63xJAzx
– Faightux News Δ (Faightux) January 23, 2023
***
Russia and the West are on the verge of a “real war” – Lavrov RT
The European Union approves an additional 500 million euros in military aid to Ukraine France24
I can’t believe this is a real tweet.
Abrams tanks “work” in Poland because there is no war fought and America has personnel and bases. https://t.co/nRceikqU0d
– Big Sergei ☦️🇺🇸🇷🇺 (witte_sergei) January 23, 2023
Why does the Egyptian navy lead a NATO-led coalition in the Red Sea? cradle
The Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to expand the reach of the Estonian Public Radio under its control.
NATO’s Baltic states and Russia expel their ambassadors with the decline in diplomatic relations, according to Reuters
***
US officials are claiming more “Russiagate” like Alabama moon nonsense. The sweeping removal of a Spanish-language letter bomb piece from The New York Times that appeared in Links yesterday.
Right and left to join the protest of the capital: “There is not a penny more for the war in Ukraine”
Germany is still far from replacing Russian gas capacity
It will take until 2026 for Germany to install 56 bcm of domestic capacity to import LNG – the same as it imported via pipeline from Russia in 2021.
By 2030, capacities are expected to reach 76.5 billion cubic meters, which is 80% of consumption. pic.twitter.com/BSGuENxPNO
– Tracy (𝒞𝒽𝒾) (chigrl) January 23, 2023
Rexit Refusniki GmbH: Less than 9% of foreign companies withdraw from Russia IntelliNews
Erdogan in Turkey shows he is not conceding Sweden’s bid for NATO, “Al-Monitor”
south of the border
Brazil and Argentina are the new Latin American currency to “reduce dependence on the US dollar” geopolitical economy
The London Metal Exchange has the lowest inventories in 25 years, with shortages of copper, zinc, lead and tin.
You know which country is the largest producer of these?
Peru, where the US has just supported a coup and discussed ‘investments’ with the Minister of Mining: https://t.co/AsNQOdExup pic.twitter.com/Z3keYuFOfB
– Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 23, 2023
Biden administration
Is Kevin McCarthy’s secret weapon Joe Biden? American expectations
Justice Department prosecutions are going up, but fines are falling hard from Global Competition Review
2024
Even Democrats are now criticizing Biden for documents corrupting Bloomberg
Kamala Harris mourns the victims of the Monterey Park shooting before giving a speech marking 50 years of CNN’s Raw.
Trump is looking to give up his own social media site, Rolling Stone
Clown car GOP
Trump’s MAGA forces threaten to overturn vote on RNC AP chief
Democrats in negligence
Why is Pete Buttigieg refusing to crack down on airline fraud? Jacobin
Jones
7 dead and 1 wounded in a mass shooting in Half Moon Bay. Custody NBC Bay Area suspect
Big brother is watching you
Scientists turn WiFi routers into “cameras” that can see people through ZMEScience walls
REPS. Adam Schiff and Jim Jordan killed wide-ranging surveillance reforms in 2020. Will they do it again? The objection
Watch the imperial collapse
Wall Street Journal report: The US arms industry is not ready for a conflict with China
Police condition monitoring
Video shows police beating Nichols like a ‘human piñata’ says Tyre Nichols’ family attorney CNN
An officer involved in the death of Nichols’ ex-accused brutality pictures The Daily Memphian
We no longer have a free press
In 2014, The Guardian newspaper published an opinion article on Ukraine by @tweet which would be openly condemned as Russian propaganda today. I doubt there is a single paragraph in this article that can resonate in today’s mainstream media environment. https://t.co/Z7zRRbFrVo
– Caitlin Johnston (@caitoz) January 23, 2023
Sports office
Investors say Jeff Bezos may sell The Washington Post to buy Leaders
Technique
The Department of Justice is preparing to sue Google over Bloomberg’s dominance of the digital advertising market
not yet. Can ChatGPT subsidize a portfolio company, lay off 60% of staff, reduce software quality, and sell the company to its own secondary fund in a simple form of fraud? https://t.co/CJHw5j3kd3
– Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) January 23, 2023
ladybug
Russia-linked payment processors feed crypto dirty bubble media
US banks pressed to cut ties with crypto firms Protos
New York financial regulator targets companies that mingle with cryptocurrency funds Reuters
class struggle
The House Always Wins: The Congenital Game Project of Labor Law and Political Economy
The Economics of Empathy and the Social Stratification of the Origins of Our Time. The Surface: A Primary Source on Janet Yellen and the Conflict Theory of Inflation
What do heavily indebted employees do? Finance and the Decline of Industrial Work Journal of Industrial Relations. From the abstract: “Because highly indebted employees tend to self-discipline in the workplace due to fear of losing their jobs and defaulting on payments, this paper argues that the rise of household finance after 1970 is associated with a decline in strike activity.”
Spotify cuts 6% of its workforce — read CEO Daniel Ek’s memo to the CNBC team
There’s bipartisanship on one thing: Ticketmaster sucks at The New Republic
“Someone has achieved a great result
They’ve figured it out
We will do that anyway
Even if you don’t pay– Gillian Welch
Antidote du jour (courtesy of rlgroves):
See Yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
