/Links 6/28/19
UncategorizedJune 28, 2019

Links 6/28/19

Why Science Can Be So Indecisive About Nutrition The Atlantic

Sweet, fatty foods could remodel the brain to drive overeating Science

Study links diet of ultra-processed foods to chronic disease risk CBC

UN world population report predicts slowing growth rate, 10.9 billion peak by 2100 New Atlas (Furzy Mouse).

I Am a Carbon Abolitionist Democracy Journal. I like that phrase. Also, the abolitionists, though a minority, won.

World’s biggest investor accused of dragging feet on climate crisis Guardian. Blackrock.

Oregon Republicans’ Return Uncertain After Cap And Trade’s Apparent Demise OPB (DK). Democrats cave.

Scientists map huge undersea fresh-water aquifer off U.S. Northeast Science Daily

Brexit

Brexit civil servant in charge of no-deal planning quits Guardian

Johnson Refuses to Rule Out Suspending Parliament: Brexit Update Bloomberg

Windrush Scandal: Home Office ‘reckless’ and ‘defensive’, leaked review finds Channel 4. Giving May a kick in the ribs on her way out.

Swiss Stocks to Be Barred From EU Trading as Talks Fail Bloomberg

Syraqistan

European nations prepare to launch delayed Iran payments channel FT

Russia tamps down US-Iran tensions Indian Punchline

America’s Free-Rider Problem in the Strait of Hormuz The Atlantic

How the OPCW’s investigation of the Douma incident was nobbled – Working Group on Syria Sic Semper Tyrannis

Officer traveling with Brazilian president Bolsonaro caught with 39 kilos of cocaine CNN. On the way to G20. 86 pounds is a lot!

China?

‘Don’t trust China,’ Hong Kong protesters tell G-20 leaders in Osaka Nikkei Asian Review

Exclusive: Alibaba Eyes $10 Billion Hong Kong Listing Caixin. All is forgiven!

What Does the Pause of Hong Kong’s Extradition Bill Mean? Council on Foreign Relations

Inside the West’s failed fight against China’s ‘Cloud Hopper’ hackers Reuters

Water Wars: A Sinking Feeling in Philippine-China Relations Lawfare

Supreme Court rejects Prabowo team’s lawsuit against Bawaslu Jakarta Post. No violations by President Jokowi Widodo.

New Cold War

Will US Elites Give Détente With Russia a Chance? The Nation (MF).

Transcript: ‘All this fuss about spies … it is not worth serious interstate relations’ (interview) Vladimir Putin, FT

Exclusive: Western intelligence hacked ‘Russia’s Google’ Yandex to spy on accounts – sources Reuters

Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange Nils Melzer, Medium. UN Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Trump Transition

Opinion analysis: No role for courts in partisan gerrymandering (Updated) and Opinion analysis: Court orders do-over on citizenship question in census case (Updated) SCOTUS Blog

House passes $4.6 billion border bill as leaders cave to moderate Democrats and GOP WaPo

Democrats Back Wall Street Push to Free Up $40 Billion in Margin Bloomberg

Washington’s first attempt at regulating Big Tech is a joke Recode (Furzy Mouse). Hawley.

Indians can worry less as the US denies capping H-1B visa quota Quartz

Boeing 737 MAX

Boeing’s Software Fix For The 737 MAX Problem Overwhelms The Plane’s Computer Moon of Alabama. Yikes!!!!

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

NSA improperly collected US phone call data after saying problem was fixed USA Today

Amazon Is Watching OneZero

A Major Police Body Cam Company Just Banned Facial Recognition NYT

Health Care

Health Insurance Coverage Eight Years After the ACA The Commonwealth Fund. Via: “[O]nly 55% had comprehensive health coverage year-round.”

WaPo Doesn’t Want Voters to Know Medicare for All Will Cut Their Health Costs FAIR

2020

Lichtman: Trump Will Win In 2020 “Unless Democrats Grow A Spine And Do Their Constitutional Duty” To Impeach RealClearPolitics

More than 15 million viewers tuned into the first Democratic debate of the 2020 race CNN

The First Democratic Debate Shuns Donald Trump in Favor of Substance The New Yorker

Joe Biden’s Haunted Legacy in Iraq The Atlantic

Called to serve: How this small North Carolina town became #1 in military recruiting McClatchy

Imperial Collapse Watch

America’s Monopoly Crisis Hits the Military Matt Stoller and Lucas Kunce, The American Conservative (CG).

Parkinson’s Disease-Causing Protein Hijacks Gut-Brain Axis Psychology Today

Signs of ‘Hidden Consciousness’ May Predict Who Will Emerge from a Coma LiveScience

Goodhart’s Law: Are Academic Metrics Being Gamed? The Gradient

Antidote du Jour (via):

Alibaba

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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This entry was posted in Guest Post, Links on June 28, 2019 by .

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.
To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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