How to build 300,000 planes in five years Construction Physics
The story behind the creation of the soon-to-reopen Folger Shakespeare Library Smithsonian
climate
A powerful tool for fighting climate change is hiding in plain sight The New Republic. Civil forfeiture(!).
Zero-carbon cement production process could significantly reduce emissions from construction New Scientist
* * * Climate change could make air turbulence even worse CNN
Something strange is happening with the tornado Vox
* * * Natural disasters will hit one in five U.S. adults financially in 2023: Fed Physics.org
* * * Japanese study warns of deadly air pollution risks from Siberian wildfires Nippon.com
The magic of fire-eating fungi life JSTOR Daily
* * * Deaths surge in America’s hottest city Scientific American. Phoenix.
California’s giant sequoias face new threat: World’s largest trees may be at risk SF Chronicle
water
Syndemics
NNU requests to participate in CDC’s HICPAC working group on infection prevention (Press Release) National Nurses United. It’s been a while since we’ve had some good news.
* * * COVID-19 resurgence in Andalusia as number of infections triples Murcia Today
DOH: COVID-19 risk remains low in Philippines despite rising cases FILSTAR
Lie to yourself at the end of the world Jessica Wildfire, OK Doomer
* * * A global pandemic treaty is on the horizon: Don’t screw it up Nature. It’s a shame that the WHO has completely lost its credibility by declaring that COVID-19 is not airborne and fighting so hard with aerosol scientists.
Standards for reporting outbreak data: a systematic review (Preprint) medRxiv. Systematic literature review. From the abstract: “The current state of outbreak data reporting is ad hoc and inconsistent. Public health officials have discretion to decide when, where, how, and what outbreak data to report. This uneven flow of information reduces the accountability and transparency needed to build public trust in the public health response and hinders response efforts.” We see this all too clearly with the ongoing H5N1 debacle.
* * * USDA expands H5N1 response assistance to more dairy producers Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy
Amid growing concerns about bird flu, many U.S. dairy workers are not receiving protective gear. Fox
Influenza H5N1 and H1N1 viruses remain infectious in unpasteurized milk on the surfaces of milking machines. (Preprint) medRxiv. From the abstract: “Bovine H5N1 and human pandemic 2009 H1N1 influenza viruses were found to remain infectious for several hours on surfaces commonly found in milking equipment materials. The data presented here make a compelling case for the risk that contaminated surfaces generated during milking may facilitate transmission of H5N1 from cow to cow and to dairy workers.”
* * * Long-term COVID research advocates slam Biden for ‘minimal funding’ in budget request The Hill
China?
America must face reality and prioritize China over Europe FT
China says Taiwan’s military drills are designed to test Taiwan’s ability to “seize power” France 24. Useful maps:
A look at the map shows that China is surrounding Taiwan and its islands with hundreds of ships and aircraft. #PrayForTaiwan #TaiwanAttacked pic.twitter.com/Tna999rM6M
— GoFund Taiwan (@GoFundTaiwan) May 23, 2024
It looks like a lockdown to me, as Eve has been suggesting all along.
China is pressuring the Afghan Taliban to stop attacks on its interests in Pakistan, dangling economic benefits at them. South China Morning Post
European Union and US seek ways to reduce reliance on Chinese shipbuilding production Splash 247
India
How to find a bride? A new struggle in India’s crisis-hit rural areas Al Jazeera
Africa
Pentagon orders withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Niger Politico
Shiraksta
Israel and Hezbollah one step closer to war Foreign Policy
* * * 94-year-old Holocaust survivor recommends arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders forward
ICC Prosecutor Threatens: ‘Court was made for Africa and thugs like Putin’ Anadolu Agency
* * * From crisis to prosperity: Netanyahu’s Gaza 2035 vision launched online Jerusalem Post. Article from early May: “AI-generated images of Gaza found in (Prime Minister’s Office) post-war Gaza plan.”
The idea that for Bibi, genocide may not be an end, but merely a means to an end – successful real estate speculation – almost restores my faith in humanity. The plan is more ambitious than that, but let’s start there. Optimism!
AIPAC donors give millions to IDF units accused of human rights abuses Intercept
European Separation
Macron tells New Caledonians he won’t push through voting reforms that sparked riots France 24
Battle Machine New Left Review. Podemos, Spain.
Dear Old England
Sunak suffers series of setbacks on first day of UK election campaign FT
A new cold war
Rosenberg: Putin’s military purges echo Prigozhin’s call for action BBC
* * * ‘New ground is being broken’: EU seizes Russian interests for Ukraine Al Jazeera
Putin authorises seizure of US assets in Russia in retaliation Bloomberg
* * * Italy reiterates that it will not send troops to Ukraine war Anadolu Agency
Biden Administration
Lawmakers formally commission Justice Department investigation of Big Oil: ‘The deception and deception must end’ Climate Protection
The Supremes
A very important legal decision has been made, and no one is talking about it Popular Information
Presumption of Novelty in Roberts’ Separation of Powers Cases (PDF) Harvard Law Review. From the abstract: “After contrasting Burkean minimalism with the fundamentalism that the Roberts Court has recently applied to several high-profile constitutional rights cases, this note traces and critiques the operation of the presumption of novelty in the Court’s recent separation of powers decisions. Ultimately, I conclude that the presumption of novelty creates entirely novel results in itself, thereby expanding judicial discretion and jurisdiction at the expense of the democratic process.”
Assange
Assange’s reprieve New Left Review
Digital Watches
AI Folly (1):
Google, you’re lying. pic.twitter.com/UHtLQ5SdpG
— Melanie Mitchell (@MelMitchell1) May 23, 2024
AI Folly (2):
Why is Google so bad at its job? pic.twitter.com/bdx97oZNv6
— Ed Zitron (@edzitron) May 23, 2024
This is not a “knowledge update” – this is a huge category error (or blatant marketing hype, whichever you prefer). Take MR SUBLIMINAL or both!)
Low-wage workers who make AI smarter call on Biden to free them from “modern slavery” Wired. Same goes for “smart.”
* * * How does ChatGPT “think”? Psychology and neuroscience explain large-scale AI language models Nature. Presentation: “Researchers reverse engineer artificial intelligence and scan the ‘brains’ of law graduates to find out what, how and why they do what they do.” Very funny. We don’t even know how to debug such stupid stuff.
International Scientific Report on Advanced AI Safety (Interim Report; PDF) UK Department of Science, Technology and Innovation. This caught my eye: “Current approaches to explaining why general-purpose AI models produce particular outputs are very limited.”
Basil
State of Wisconsin buys nearly $100 million worth of BlackRock’s Spot Bitcoin ETF Coindesk
A well-known free press
Selling a house for firewood Hamilton Nolan, “How Things Work”
Linkrot Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic. It’s worth considering that paper-based libraries are much more robust against jackpots than (power- and water-hungry) data centers.
supply chain
These chokepoints pose the greatest risks to global shipping Bloomberg
Class struggle
Why the Alabama Mercedes union campaign failed but Review: How reformers doubled AFL-CIO membership in Vermont Labor Notes
Part 1: The need for sectoral co-regulation About labor. Part II, Part 3.
Janet Yellen says many Americans still struggling with inflation FT: No. They are suffering from a decline in real wages.
Tax revenues for the wealthy reach $1.8 billion, growing twice as fast as expected WGBH. I wonder what will happen to my inheritance…
Reduce this:
A few days ago I successfully summited Everest. Why would anyone want to do something like that? Adventure capitalism at its worst. pic.twitter.com/f0aW7GyD3K
— Ian Cameron (@theiaincameron) May 23, 2024
Today’s antidote (Bernard Gagnon):
See yesterday’s link and the Antidote du Jour here.
