Links 6/16/2023 | naked capitalism

Five planets will be lined up in space Saturday. How to see the ‘planetary alignment’ USA Today

Catfish Noodling 101: A Beginner’s Guide Field and Stream

High Inflation is Officially Behind Us Richard Vague, Democracy

Larry Summers Was Wrong About Inflation Eric Levitz, New York Magazine

Joachim Nagel: Ensuring the supply of cash – including in times of crisis Bank of International Settlements

Climate

Record-breaking heat scorches South; parts of Texas could top 120 degrees FOX

The Mercury is Off the Charts Bill McKibben, The Crucial Years

Biden calls climate change ‘only truly existential threat‘ Anadolu Agency

Climate-Friendly Cocktail Recipes Go Light on Ice Scientific American

Water

Drift of Earth’s Pole Confirms Groundwater Depletion as a Significant Contributor to Global Sea Level Rise 1993–2010 Geophysical Research Letters

#COVID19

Mandy Cohen, seen as next CDC director, would bring political chops to an agency lacking them Helen Branswell, STAT. Ah. The CDC thinks it has a messaging problem.

Association between vaccination rates and severe COVID-19 health outcomes in the United States: a population-level statistical analysis (preprint) medRxiv. From the Abstract: “We analyzed the association between time-dependent vaccination rates and COVID-19 severity for 48 states in the U.S. using Generalized Additive Models (GAMs)…. We used SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance data to model the different COVID-19 variant driven waves separately…. Our study revealed a strong and statistically significant negative association between vaccine uptake and COVID-19 severity across each variant wave. Results also showed that booster shots offered additional protection against severe diseases during the Omicron wave. Additionally, higher underlying population immunity based on previous infection rates are shown to be associated with reduced COVID-19 severity. Full-service restaurant visits are associated with increased COVID-19 severity for the pre-Delta and Delta waves, while office of physician visits are associated with increased COVID-19 severity for the Omicron wave. Moreover, the states with higher government policy index scores have lower COVID-19 severity. Regarding static variables, the social vulnerability index, and the proportion of adults at high risk exhibit positive associations with COVID-19 severity, while Medicaid spending per person exhibits a negative association with COVID-19 severity. Despite the emergence of new variants, vaccines remain highly effective at reducing severe outcomes of COVID-19.”

FDA panel backs monovalent XBB switch for fall COVID vaccines Center for Disease Research and Policy. I’m so old I can remember when mRNA vaccines were going to have point releases, like software.

NYS working to get rid of unused pandemic materials WKBW

China?

China drops cremation data from quarterly report, raising questions about key Covid death indicator South China Morning Post

What if China really did develop COVID as a bioweapon? Here are the issues involved The Conversation

Myanmar

Time Running Out on Indonesia’s Myanmar Diplomacy Institute for Security and Development Policy. There is no diplomatic solution. The Myanmar junta is no more agreement-capable than the United States.

‘They ignore us on purpose’: Cyclone deepens Rohingya suffering Frontier Myanmar

India

India seals $3 billion drone deal with US ahead of PM Modi’s visit Business Standard

How Dowries Are Fuelling a Femicide Epidemic The New Yorker

How Polo Was Discovered In Manipur Madras Courier

Syraqistan

Flowing Through Time: The Nile River Shaping Cairo’s Architecture and Urban Landscape ArchDaily

L.A. and other cities are recovering, but not their downtowns. Why? Brookings Institution

European Disunion

Hungarian man pays with fake money with a picture of George Soros in a pub Daily News Hungary

New Not-So-Cold War

How Ukraine has become a magnet for Western neo-Nazis Scotland Today Online. The deck: “The war-torn east European country is a mecca for some of the most odious people on earth. What sort of threat does this pose to their home countries?”

Round Two? There Is No Round Two Aurelien, Trying to Understand the World. Well worth a read.

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The Kakhovka Dam Disaster: Responsibility and Consequences Wilson Center. Alternatively:

Dreizin Publishes Complete Ukrainian Battle Plan for Entire Zaporozhie Front The Dreizen Report. Big if true. Interestingly, suggests a post-Kakhova river crossing, but at Kamenskoe-Vasilievka Ukraine, and not near Energodar.

SITREP 6/15/23: Kakhovka Powerplay Heats Up as AFU Readies For Round 2 Simplicius the Thinker(s)

Russia says US intelligence is helping Ukraine ‘cover the tracks’ of its attack on Kakhovka dam Anadolu Agency

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Sending a message?

“Missiles are still flying towards Kyiv,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

The president of South Africa is also in the Ukrainian capital.https://t.co/UWYsAccZmz

— DW News (@dwnews) June 16, 2023

Ukraine’s Offensive Meets Strong Russian Response WSJ. URL has the less anodyne “riposte” for “response.” Commentary:

Hike in groups. Bears like to have options

— National Park Service (@NatlParkService) June 10, 2023

War on the Black Sea – Ukrainian Drone Attacks on the Ivan Khurs and the Priazovye John Helmer

Meeting with war correspondents President of Russia

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Is There a Future in Politics for Russia’s Wagner Boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Vladimir Putin sides with Russia’s military in clash with Wagner FT

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Why do US sanctions fail? Because a platypus isn’t a bird Al Jazeera. Commentary:

Every country has their own flavour of humour. The British are famous for the absurdist and wry puns. The Americans have pratfalls and physical comedy. The Germans are famous for… nevermind. Anyway, if there’s a particularly Russian sense of humour, it’s trolling: pic.twitter.com/TGADgY7TzF

— Alexander G. Rubio (@AlexanderGRubi2) June 14, 2023

A Forgotten History The American Conservative

South of the Border

Peru’s President Boluarte Says She’ll Remain in Power Until 2026 Bloomberg

Biden Administration

Lina Khan Fires a Crooked CEO Matt Stoller, BIG

Spook Country

Guardsman indicted on charges of disclosing classified national defense information AP. Teixeira.

Digital Watch

I’m a Student. You Have No Idea How Much We’re Using ChatGPT. Chronicle of Higher Education. “As any former student knows, one of the main challenges of writing an essay is just thinking through the subject matter and coming up with a strong, debatable claim. With one snap of the fingers and almost zero brain activity, I suddenly had one.” Hand-written, proctored examinations followed by viva voces would be a start (which would require individualized attention to students, and who wants that? So, on consideration, no).

Artificial Intelligence Already Being Used In Transactional Drafting: An Interview With The CEO Of Spellbook Dealbreaker

Supply Chain

World’s rice glut will be put to the test with El Niño’s return Economic Times

Police State Watch

“All I am saying is the police will do their job as they see fit.” Worcester Sucks and I Love It

Healthcare

The Moral Crisis of America’s Doctors NYT (IM Doc).

Why Are Corporate Healthcare Fraudsters Being Handed ‘Get Out of Jail Free Cards’? Common Dreams

Zeitgeist Watch

Mating n+1 (Amfortas).

Imperial Collapse Watch

How the U.S. let EV battery tech born here wind up in the hands of China Autoblog (via Bloomberg, not paywalled). Well worth a read.

Guillotine Watch

Finance Executive Accused of Drugging and Raping Teen in Midtown Hotel NYT

Shedding equity: Housing slowdown leads to first annual drop in US homeowner equity since 2012 AP

Class Warfare

Korean writers picket in solidarity with Writers Guild of America Hankyoreh

Strategies of Denial New Left Review. “The American left’s blinkered focus on the domestic impact of Bidenomics has echoes of the ‘social imperialism’ of the European belle époque, when the Webbs and Bernsteins celebrated an increased share of the cake for their native working class, as inter-imperial rivalries and colonial depredations accelerated towards catastrophe.”

Compounding Optimism Collaborative. Pessimism doesn’t compound??

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.